Grants & Funding
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Funding Opportunities/Solicitations - Among NCEE's responsibilities are promoting and advancing the field of environmental economics, including its full range of sub-disciplines. As funds are available in NCEE's budget to support these goals, when the supported activities are primarily for the benefit of the public, NCEE uses grants or cooperative agreements awarded to qualified parties outside EPA to perform this work. NCEE awards such funds through an open and competitive process, soliciting proposals from any eligible and qualified applicants. Although it was previously possible for NCEE to consider unsolicited proposals, we are no longer able to do so. Interested persons are invited to sign up for our email distribution list to receive announcements of solicitations when they are publicly available (please see disclaimer regarding email notification).
Previous Assistance Awards - As funds were available in NCEE's budget for support of NCEE's goals through grant or cooperative agreement to qualified parties outside EPA and when the supported activities were primarily for the benefit of the public, NCEE awarded grants and cooperative agreements. See our list of previous awards back to October, 2002 (the beginning of the 2003 fiscal year).
Related Sites - In addition, EPA's Office of Research and Development also has annual grant competitions, and we have provided a page with the ones of most interest to environmental economists. We also maintain an archive of previous economics-related research, which was funded by these ORD (and/or NSF) grants.
Previous Assistance Awards
The following grants and cooperative agreements have been issued since October 2002:
Title: Voluntary Pollution Control Initiatives Workshop
This project supports hosting a workshop of national scope on Government and Firm-led Voluntary Pollution Control (VPC) Initiatives. While mandatory regulation remains the central tenet of US environmental policy, the regulatory landscape has changed in recent years with the increased recourse by federal and state agencies to VPC initiatives to improve environmental performance. The purpose of the proposed workshop is to provide a national forum for businesses, policy-makers, and researchers in environmental economics and environmental policy-related disciplines to assess current knowledge and debate the latest research on the determinants, effects, and effectiveness of VPC programs with a particular focus on their positive and negative spillover effects. VPC programs are an increasingly common feature of the contemporary approach to environmental protection in the U.S., so this workshop is designed to gauge the benefits or costs of such approach that have not been recognized before by policy-makers and academics.
| Grant #: | 83497701 |
| Funded Amount: | $74,728 |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2011 - 06/30/2012 |
| Awardee: | The Ohio State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Aboul Sam |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-10-01, Environmental Economics Workshops, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Alecia Harvey |
Title: Dissertation Workshops in Environmental Economics
The goal of the proposed activities is to strengthen the field of environmental and resource economics through workshops that are aimed at enhancing communication among PhD students and junior researchers. The workshops will bring together graduate students, junior faculty and senior faculty in an informal but intellectually vibrant forum, and help junior researchers obtain feedback for their ideas as well as incubate new ideas. These workshops will help junior researchers (graduate students and junior faculty) develop better research programs that are more connected to policy. These workshops will help to improve the research and presentation skills of the environmental economics community, which will in turn enhance its usefulness to EPA and other policy makers.
| Grant #: | 83497801-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $49,544 (partial funding) |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2011 - 06/30/2016 |
| Awardee: | University of California Santa Barbara |
| Principal Investigator: | Charles Kolstad |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-10-01 Environmental Economics Workshops, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Alecia Harvey |
Title: Current Issues Workshops: Intersections: Aligning Environmental and Transportation Policies to Mitigate Climate Change
The overall goal of the project is to explore the intersection of environmental and transportation policies and advance understanding of the analytical tools required to assess the economic and environmental impact of transportation policy, especially in light of environmental challenges or policies (e.g., expected climate change policies). This project will engage a group of experts in environmental economics and law, together with transportation planners and practitioners for a one day event focused on the use of cost-benefit analysis and environmental economics in assessing transportation policy at the national, regional, and local levels with particular emphasis on aligning economic and environmental goals in transportation policy, covering such issues as the social cost of carbon, the rebound effect, behavioral economics, and consumer welfare issues as they relate to transportation policy. Methods for estimating and monetizing the positive environmental impacts from transportation policies will be examined, with the goal of assuring more accurate evaluation of regulation and government projects in the transportation sector. Ultimately, more informed decision making in the transportation sector can lead to increased environmental and consumer welfare by identifying those policies that generate maximum social benefits in the most cost-effective manner possible.
| Grant #: | 83497501-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $80,233 |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2011 - 06/30/2012 |
| Awardee: | New York University |
| Principal Investigator: | Michael Livermore |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-10-01 Environmental Economics Workshops, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Alecia Harvey |
Title: Current Issues Workshop - Environmental Economics
The goal of the proposed activities is to strengthen the field of environmental and resource economics through a series of small conferences on narrowly defined topical issues. The workshops are intended to facilitate communication among researchers in specific areas of environmental economics and help junior researchers develop better research programs that are more connected to policy. The workshops explore the state‐of‐the‐art of a specific topic, bringing together the world’s most prominent researchers on the topic, for intense exploration of the frontier of research. Possible topics include: comparative experiences with cap & trade; advances in measuring economic costs of air pollution; climate change and development; advances in the economics of integrated assessment; innovation and environmental regulation; and water research collaboration among economists, political scientists, hydrologists, and geologists. These workshops will help to improve the research and presentation skills of the environmental economics community, and increase researchers capability to conduct empirical work on the interplay between environmental regulation and environmental outcomes, including developing better methods for quantifying benefits to human health and welfare.
| Grant #: | 83497601-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $94,282 (partial funding) |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2011 - 06/30/2014 |
| Awardee: | University of California Santa Barbara |
| Principal Investigator: | Charles Kolstad |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-10-01 Environmental Economics Workshops, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Alecia Harvey |
Title: Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms
This project plans to use integrated assessment models (IAMs) to design efficient market-based policies that manage multiple pollutants. The IAMs will be used to determine the marginal damages of emissions of various pollution types in various source locations throughout the United States. Using these marginal damages estimates, the analysis will proceed to evaluate multi-pollutant strategies to control pollution emissions in the U.S. To compute the marginal damage of air pollution emissions the project will rely on an existing state-of-the-art IAM (The Air Pollution Emission Experiments and Policy Analysis Model – APEEP). APEEP currently estimates the marginal damage of emissions for the following air pollutants at nearly 10,000 sources in the contiguous U.S: ammonia (NH3), nitrogen oxides (NOx), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), coarse particulate matter (PM10 - 2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This project will update these data using the latest National Emission Inventory (NEI), and design efficient cap-and-trade instruments to manage these multiple pollutants. Efficient cap-and-trade programs require implementing fixed exchange rates between regulated sources that are equivalent to the ratio of the sources’ marginal damages. Multi-pollutant management is critically important; if markets for individual pollutants can be rolled into one consolidated cap-and-trade market, it will ease administrative and regulatory costs as well as uncertainty for firms that produce multiple pollutants. The project will also include greenhouse gases (GHGs) into this framework. Employing published estimates of the marginal damage for GHGs, the APEEP model is ready to design efficient cap-and-trade regimes that govern the pollutants listed above and GHGs. Additionally, this project will explore how to design market-based policies that minimize social costs while not violating a pre-existing standard. In the framework of a cap-and-trade policy, APEEP will be used to compute optimal trading ratios between specific sources in an (emission) quantity constrained policy setting. Finally, the project will develop optimal approaches to manage facilities that generate pollution in multiple media: water and air, specifically.
| Grant #: | 83456501-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $290,942 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/01/2009 - 09/29/2013 |
| Awardee: | Middlebury College |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Nicholas Muller |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, Sargent.Keith@epa.gov, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Market Impacts and Distributional Consequences of Pollution Control Mechanisms in the Context of Multiple Interacting Policies and Market Failures
This research project will develop a series of complementary analyses for understanding the economic efficiency, environmental effectiveness, and distributional effects of a broad range of policies, accounting for how different policy instruments interact with one another, and how they perform in the presence of induced technological change. The methods will be applied to the two sectors of greatest import for carbon dioxide and conventional pollutant emissions: electricity generation and transportation. First, to ground the analysis, the proposal will conduct a comprehensive review of existing policies and major proposals for reducing emissions and promoting clean technologies in these sectors, not only at the Federal and state levels in the U.S., but also common practices abroad. Next, the proposal will develop an analytical model of consumer, supplier, and overall market responses to these kinds of policy interventions, in order to develop intuition about interactions among policies. Importantly, in addition to an emissions externality, the model will incorporate two types of market imperfections that often motivate technology-specific policies: undervaluation of energy efficiency by consumers and spillovers to knowledge accumulation by producers. A numerical model will follow the conceptual analysis, and the proposal will carefully parameterize it for our two sectors. The ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive guide for policymakers on how the existing abundance of policies and policy options should be understood, coordinated, and possibly reformed.
| Grant #: | 83456801-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $285,519 |
| Period of Performance: | 10/01/2009 - 12/31/2012 |
| Awardee: | Resources for the Future |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Carolyn Fisher |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, Sargent.Keith@epa.gov, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Investigating the Performance of Carbon Dioxide Allowance Auctions in the Context of Hybrid Price and Quantity Instruments, Multiple Vintages, and Declining Caps
Recent initiatives and proposals for controlling carbon dioxide emissions have centered on the use of cap and trade schemes that have features designed to control excessive price volatility. These hybrid schemes often encompass some expansion in the supply of allowances at pre-determined price points. In addition, most proposals include provisions for auctioning rather than grandfathering allowances into the market, including the sale of forward vintages. This research proposal uses laboratory experiments to examine issues of auction design in the case of these hybrid cap and trade regimes. The proposal will investigate the performance of commonly proposed auction forms in the case of safety-valve price mechanisms that allow the available supply of allowances to expand once a price trigger is passed. The sale of forward vintages may also affect auction design choices, especially in regimes with declining future caps. Experimental methods can help improve the efficiency of market and auction design choices.
| Grant #: | 83456401-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $177,102 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/2010 - 12/31/2012 |
| Awardee: | University of Virginia |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. William Shobe |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | William Wheeler, Wheeler.William@epa.gov, 202-566-2264 |
Title: Cost Containment through Permit Banking and Fuel Procurement: The Case of the US Acid Rain Program
Emissions trading schemes have been, and will continue to be, used to regulate many pollutants both in the US and abroad. These trading schemes, for the most part, fix emission levels which can create compliance cost uncertainty. An often overlooked method of dealing with compliance cost uncertainty is the firms’ method of input fuel procurement duration (i.e. long-term versus short-term contracting for input fuels) and the relationship these procurement strategies have with other institutionalized cost containment provisions such as permit banking. This proposal plans to collect and synthesize data from multiple publicly available sites pertaining to U.S. Acid Rain program and electricity generators to empirically analyze the relationship between cost containment choices, regulatory conditions, and permit price variability. Improving an understanding of these relationships this study will be beneficial in developing more efficient permit trading programs.
| Grant #: | 83425801-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $44,713 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/11/2010 – 06/10/2012 |
| Awardee: | Resources for the Future |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Harrison Fell |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Market Influences on the Adoption of Green Technology
New technologies are crucial to dealing with the problem of air pollution, an increasingly important issue considering the health and environmental consequences. It is not sufficient to merely develop alternative technologies, it is important to study impediments to the adoption of these technologies. The technology diffusion literature has demonstrated that diffusion of new technologies can be slow, even if the technology is superior to the status quo. The theory literature shows that this problem is exacerbated if there is uncertainty in the efficacy of the new technology by firms and consumers and if the decision to adopt is. The dry-cleaning industry clearly demonstrates this problem. The standard technology used in dry cleaning requires the use of perchoroethylene (perc), a toxic air contaminant. There are alternative, environmentally friendly technologies available, but many cleaning facility owners are reluctant to purchase ”green” equipment due to the increased cleaning time required as well as their uncertainty regarding the quality of cleaning and potential appeal to consumers. Dry cleaning equipment is a costly and durable good, so this uncertainty leads to barriers to technology adoption. Fortunately, there may be multiple contributing factors that can expedite the adoption of green technologies. While the theory literature has shown that uncertainty will cause firms to play a waiting game in order to learn about the technology from others, competition can lead to higher profits for the first adopter if they have now positively differentiated their product.. With both competition and uncertainty, the nature of the game becomes less clear: if there is low uncertainty and the technology seems to be good, firms will compete to adopt first, otherwise, they will wait to adopt to see the uncertainty resolved from the actions of others. The goal of this dissertation research is to analyze the investment decisions of firms in this industry and quantify the contributing factors that lead to green technology adoption. These factors include the environmental preferences of consumers, the level of local competition, and uncertainty in the technology. This proposal requests the funds necessary to get access to firm-level census data available through the Center for Economic Studies (CES) in support of a doctoral thesis.
| Grant #: | 83425701-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $41,600 |
| Period of Performance: | 12/01/2009 – 11/30/2011 |
| Awardee: | Stanford University |
| Principal Investigator: | Mr. Wesley Hartmann |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Recreation Demand and Water Quality in Iowa's Rivers and Streams: A Proposal for Primary Data Collection
The principle goal of this project is to gather and analyze primary data on the use of and
valuation associated with water quality improvements to Iowa's primary rivers and streams. A significant fraction of the state's rivers and streams are on the state's list of impaired waters submitted to and approved by the U.S. EPA.1 Indeed, the state's namesake river, the Iowa River, was recently named the third most endangered river in the country by American Rivers, with nearly forty percent of the river designated as “impaired." Despite the general concern regarding the conditions of its waterways, the state has very little information about either the extent to which these rivers and streams are actually used or the value placed in potential water quality improvements. Such information is critical as the state seeks to improve water quality in Iowa and to meet its federal obligations to develop TMDL standards for its various water bodies. The proposed study will investigate the usage patterns among over seventy primary river stretches in the state, eliciting not only visitation rates, but also information about the nature of activities engaged in and around these stretches. Understanding the nature of the activities at the various sites will provide a more complete picture as to the source of values from the recreational activities and the potential for site improvements beyond changes in the water itself that may have value (such as bike paths).
| Grant #: | 83426101-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $72,747 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2010 – 01/31/2011 |
| Awardee: | Iowa State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Mr. Babatunde Abidoye |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Marrietta Haggins, 202-566-3692 |
Title: Data Collection to Support Valuing Water Pollution Reductions in Midwestern Lake Ecosystems
Lake ecosystems in Iowa are among the most degraded in the country, primarily due to agricultural nutrients and sediment deposition. Despite this poor water quality, these lakes are heavily used with over 60% of Iowa households visiting one or more lakes annually. Recent initiatives in the state have begun to make demonstrable improvements in water quality in some locations, but substantial investments will be needed to restore water quality to targeted levels and to remove lakes from their impaired status. Water quality projects can involve dredging, building and maintenance of buffers, and introduction of conservation practices on agricultural fields in the watershed. These efforts can be quite costly and funding for projects from the state is limited. The Iowa Lakes valuation project was initiated in 2002 with funding from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to provide information on the usage of Iowa’s lakes and to estimate the value of water quality improvements at those lakes. While the existing panel data set has been extremely valuable, of primary interest to DNR and the research team at this stage are the changes in lake usage and welfare values as a result of changes in water quality at some of the lakes where restoration projects have been initiated. This research will augment this data with a stated preference dataset that will adapt to this context and try to verify a new approaches to generating stated preference data.
| Grant #: | 83426001-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $72,815 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2010 – 01/31/2011 |
| Awardee: | Iowa State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Ms. Subhra Bhattacharjee |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Marrietta Haggins, 202-566-3692 |
Title: Long-term Operation and Maintenance Costs of Stormwater BMPs
The objective of this study is to construct an empirical database on observed (actual) long term maintenance costs of a variety of stormwater BMPs. Data collected will be analyzed for general long-term operation and maintenance cost relationships for BMPs that can complement existing construction cost estimates. Additionally, data collected will allow for further understanding of: 1) failure and retrofit rates; 2) identification of the parties responsible for maintenance and operation of stormwater BMPs; 3) frequency of maintenance by BMP type; and 4) inspection requirements by BMP type. The data collected in this study can help inform both regulatory agencies as well as private entities of the long-term operation and maintenance costs associated with stormwater control methods and large small-scale stormwater infrastructures.
| Grant #: | 83425601-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $66,641 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/01/2009 – 02/29/2012 |
| Awardee: | Virginia Polytechnic Institute/State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr, Kurt Stephenson |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | William Wheeler, Wheeler.William@epa.gov, 202-566-2264 |
Title: The Adjustment Costs of Clean Air Act Amendments: Evidence from Administrative Data
Recent studies have found a significant relationship between environmental regulation and job loss. However, little is known about those affected by regulation induced job separation, including the significant costs incurred by those displaced. Several authors, including the EPA, have stressed the importance of accounting for adjustment costs of environmental mandates. However, little work has been done in this area, mostly as a result of limitations involving data. This research project plans to use the very rich administrative data from the Census Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) to explore the transitional impacts of the Clean Air Act Amendments of the 1990’s. Given access to the data, this project will be able to provide robust estimates as to unemployment duration and long term earnings losses associated with increased air quality mandates. The richness of the data also allows me to examine whether
regulation induces job transfer within or across industries. These are important questions, and this project will provide the first estimates as to the adjustment costs associated with transitioning into a more stringent environmental regime.
| Grant #: | 83425901-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $34,650 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/01/2010 - 05/31/2011 |
| Awardee: | Columbia University |
| Principal Investigator: | Mr. William Walker |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-02, : Research on the Design of Policies for Pollution Control Using Market Mechanisms, and Data Gathering for Dissertation and Early Career Research on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Current Issues Workshop-Economics/Land Use Change
Under this proposal, the recipient will bring together experts working at the forefront of theoretical, empirical, and policy aspects of economics focused on spatially explicit land use modeling. The current advances have occurred with researchers simply interacting in the “traditional” academic framework of annual conference sessions, individual collaborations, etc., but a major leap forward can be made by the synergy created in a small focused workshop which brings together resource and environmental economists. The final workshop, while soliciting papers from a broad range of individuals and open calls for papers, will be limited to paper authors and invited attendees.
| Grant #: | 83414101-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $75, 638 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2009 - 03/31/2010 |
| Awardee: | University of Maryland-College Park |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Loretta Lynch |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01, Environmental Economic Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Marrietta Haggins, 202-566-3692 |
Title: Meta Analysis-Economic Research Workshop
The objectives of this project are to insure a continuation of an international colloquia series on meta-analysis of economics research and to initiate a substantive training component for economists and environmental science researchers. The recipient will hold a one-day training session on constructing databases, meta-analytic estimation tools, and on modeling selection effects (research priority, methodological, publication, and self-selection biases). The emphasis of this training will be on the best ways to use meta-analysis for environmental economics research, including the validity and use of benefit transfer. The training session will not only provide participants with a solid foundation for conducting their own meta-analyses, but also empower scholars and graduate students alike to fully participate in the empirical applications sessions of the workshop. The second and third days of the workshop will provide a forum for esteemed meta-analysts from around the world to share their research. In addition, these sessions provide the opportunity for the mentoring of economists and environmental scientists who are beginning their foray into applying meta-analysis to environmental economic and policy issues.
| Grant #: | 83413501-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $67,705 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2009 - 04/30/2010 |
| Awardee: | Oregon State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Randall Rosenberger |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Marrietta Haggins, 202-566-3692 |
Title: Micro-Econometric Training Workshop
The recipient will conduct a training workshop centered on the theme of micro-econometric analysis in environmental economics. The workshop will be held in 2009 in Washington, DC, and will target young professionals working on applied problems in environmental economics. The proposed workshop is a logical follow-up to a similarly themed, EPA-sponsored workshop organized in October 2006. The recipient will assemble a similar speaker team and build on the success of the first workshop, integrating lectures on topics such as classical and Bayesian mixed logit models, dynamic aspects of agent choices, spatial sorting models, and corner solution models with applied exercises and tutorials on purpose-written software. The need for this type of workshop stems from the fact that contemporary analysis methods for the problems faced by environmental economists have outpaced standard course work and packaged software. State of the art analysis today requires an understanding of micro-econometric methods generally, and comfort with simulation techniques and the modeling frameworks listed above in particular. While many of these techniques are surprisingly accessible to the practitioner there are nonetheless large fixed costs associated with learning them. The workshop is designed to ease entry into these analysis methods for economists working on environmental policy problems.
| Grant #: | 83414401-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $78,489 |
| Period of Performance: | 01/30/2009 - 04/30/2010 |
| Awardee: | North Carolina State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Daniel Phaneuf |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Marrietta Haggins, 202-566-3692 |
Title: The Use of Experimental Methods in Environmental Economics Workshop
Under this proposal, a methods development and training workshop will be conducted that focuses on the use of experimental methods to address environmental and natural resource questions. The workshop will take place in June 2009 immediately after the annual meeting of the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA) in Burlington, Vermont. The goal of the workshop is to promote the use of experimental methods and to educate researchers about the methodology. The training will be complemented with invited and select paper presenters on the topic and will be published as a special issue of Agricultural and Resource Economics Review.
| Grant #: | 83413801-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $60,632 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2009 - 12/31/2010 |
| Awardee: | University of Delaware |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Kent Messer |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Heartlands Environmental Economics Workshop
Under this proposal, the recipient will continue the Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop, which has to date been managed by Iowa State University. The objectives of the workshop include: to bring together economists working on environmental and resource problems in the Midwest, to exchange research ideas, to critically assess each others work, and to encourage collaborative efforts; to identify important public policy issues and research topics relevant to environmental and resource economics in the Midwest and to inform economists working in this area; and to provide a forum for graduate students in environmental and resource economics to present completed (or nearly completed) research to obtain critical feedback and for less advanced graduate students to become acquainted with current work in the field and to explore research ideas.
| Grant #: | 83413901-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $121,449 |
| Period of Performance: | 04/20/2009 - 04/19/2012 |
| Awardee: | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Amy Ando |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Workshops on the Connection from Empirical Analysis to Welfare Evaluation
Under this proposal, the recipient will continue organizing a two-day workshop during the Summer Institute of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The workshop furthers economic research linking empirical work and welfare evaluation in several ways. First, it brings together the key empirical researchers with those doing analytical and other theoretical research for discussions about the connection from empirical work to the theory, and for discussion of individual papers. Second, those discussions will encourage empirical researchers to think about the implications of their research for welfare of different groups, and it will encourage analytical modelers to think about how to base models more concretely on empirical findings. Third, the announcement of future joint NBER-EPA workshops on these linkages will encourage researchers early in their work to think about and incorporate such linkages. Finally, it will bring different types of researchers together in a way that will allow them to discuss other joint work that would actually employ these methods simultaneously in a more comprehensive model.
| Grant #: | 83413401-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $96,118 partial funding |
| Period of Performance: | 04/01/2009 - 03/31/2013 |
| Awardee: | National Bureau of Economic Research |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Don Fullerton |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Carl Pasurka, Pasurka.Carl@epa.gov, 202-566-2275 |
Title: Camp Resources - A Workshop for Professional Development of Young Researchers in Environmental Economics
The objective of this award is to provide continued support for Camp Resources, a highly successful workshop for development of young researchers in environmental and resource economics. With the initial support of North Carolina State University (NCSU), Camp Resources was originally developed fifteen years ago, and has provided a forum for graduate students, young professionals, and advanced undergraduate students considering graduate study, to present research at its early stages and receive significant feedback from senior researchers. Since its inception, Camp Resources has provided an opportunity for over 300 young researchers to expand their research and presentation skills by interacting in a small, less-formal workshop with top scholars in the field of environmental economics. It has also helped to create a network for future interactions and collaborations among those who attended. This workshop improves the capabilities of young environmental economists to conduct state-of-the-art research, thus advancing our knowledge on a wide array of environmental economics principles and tools.
| Grant #: | 83414301-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $175,989 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2009 - 11/30/2013 |
| Awardee: | North Carolina State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. Laura Taylor |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-08-01
Environmental Economics Workshops |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Biofuel Trade-Offs: Fuels, Forests and Food
This project examines biofuel trade-offs with fuels, forests and food production. The research will quantify trade-offs between production of biofuels, loss of forests, and production of food. It will compare scenarios without expansion in biofuel production in the U.S. and in Europe to a baseline where biofuel expansion proceeds according to recent policies. Effects on tropical forests, greenhouse gas emission, and on food prices will be explored. In addition, the analysis will consider policies which both increase biofuel production, while also protecting forests, to see how much additional effect this has on program costs and in raising food prices.
| Grant #: | 83412601-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $ 90,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 10/01/2008 - 09/30/2010 |
| Awardee: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Principal Investigator: | Dr. John Reilly |
| Award Type: | Simplified Competition Process |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Can Panel-Based Internet Surveys be Trusted for Determining Willingness to Pay?
The use of internet-based survey panels is in many ways revolutionizing survey research for determining willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental improvements, but this approach also raises new concerns. In particular, sample composition in panel-based internet surveys is considered potentially detrimental to the validity and generality of their results. We address these concerns by proposing a research design, which contrasts two sample selection strategies (panel, RDD) and three survey modes (mail, web, self-selected paper/web) to disentangle possible sample and mode effects. This allows for a complete comparison of the internet-based panel approach to its chief competing approach for soliciting WTP: a mail survey using RDD sampling.
| Grant #: | 83358801-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $241,513 |
| Period of Performance: | 09/01/2007 - 08/31/2009 |
| Awardee: | Resources for the Future |
| Principal Investigator: | Alan Krupnick |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research on the Use of Panel-Based Internet Surveys |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Mode Effects and Other Potential Biases in Panel-Based Internet Surveys Augmenting Nationwide Environmental Survey on Willingness to Pay
Under this proposal, the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center (WYSAC), a research unit at the University of Wyoming, will perform a comprehensive analysis of the use of panel-based Internet surveys for determining willingness-to-pay. They will compare estimates of WTP derived using traditional phone and mail surveys to the estimates obtained when the same surveys are administered over the Internet to a standing panel. In addition to comparing WTP estimated under each of these three modes (phone, mail, and panel-based Internet), their research will address air quality and different question formats for eliciting WTP. Their research will also address survey fatigue, panel conditioning, avidity effects, and hypothetical bias.
| Grant #: | 83359101-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $303,929 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/2007 - 01/31/2009 |
| Awardee: | University of Wyoming |
| Principal Investigator: | Mark McNulty |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research on the Use of Panel-Based Internet Surveys |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: The Appropriateness of Panel Based Findings for Environmental Valuation
The project proposes to analyze data collected under a previous research project to test possible distortions resulting from utilizing a panel-based internet mode for survey administration. The primary focus of the project is to examine an internet survey panel from recruitment into the panel through the completion of an individual survey to test for biases in sample coverage, nonresponse bias, panel retention, and survey taking expertise. The second focus of the project is to analyze pretests of the survey administered using different survey modes to further test for differences in responses and errors made by respondents during the task. Finally, they propose to expand upon tests of an internet survey panel conducted during previous research.
| Grant #: | 83359201-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $120,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/2007 - 07/31/2011 |
| Awardee: | Vanderbilt University |
| Principal Investigator: | W. Kip Viscusi |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research on the Use of Panel-Based Internet Surveys |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Combining Expert Judgments to Characterize Uncertainty for Economic Analysis
This project is intended to critically examine, test, and improve methods for using expert judgment in environmental risk analysis. It focuses on methods for combining distributions obtained from multiple experts. In particular, they plan to investigate the properties of two state-of-the-art methods for combining distributions, by mathematical analysis, application to synthetic data sets, and application to real expert judgments concerning a variety of environmental risks (e.g., exposure to air pollutants, exposure to radionuclides from a nuclear power plant). In addition, they will develop Bayesian methods for incorporating biases in expert judgments (e.g., overconfidence bias) and dependence among experts’ judgments and compare the performance of this method with the existing methods.
| Grant #: | 83359301-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $211,090 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/2007 - 07/31/2009 |
| Awardee: | Harvard University |
| Principal Investigator: | James Hammitt |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research for Assessing and Characterizing Uncertainty in Economic Analysis |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Episodic Control of Ozone Precursor Emissions from Mobile Sources
The purpose of this study is to examine the cost-effectiveness and feasibility of an episodic control scheme that requires people to purchase permits in order to drive on high ozone days. Under this scheme people would be allowed to drive during predicted ozone episodes only if they purchased a permit before the ozone season began. On-road vehicles without a permit would be subject to a significant fine. To examine the costs of such a scheme and its cost-effectiveness (i.e., the cost per ton of NOx or VOC) requires estimating the demand function for permits and relating the number of permits purchased to vehicle emissions.
| Grant #: | 83358901-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $88,668 |
| Period of Performance: | 09/01/2007 - 08/31/2008 |
| Awardee: | University of Maryland-College Park |
| Principal Investigator: | Maureen Cropper |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research Support for Data Gathering for Dissertations on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Data Gathering for Economic Evaluation of Agricultural Best Management Practices for Non-Point Source Pollution Control
This project focuses on water pollution reduction in northeastern US watersheds, specifically with respect to phosphorus (P) loading in the Delaware and Upper Susquehanna Watersheds. We analyze one class of methods used to reduce this pollution: agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs). These can be implemented in certain combinations and over areas with differing physical characteristics, and result in different levels of P loading. They examine how costs associated with installation and maintenance, as well as the opportunity cost of conventional production, affect choice and placement of BMPs. They also examine the economic benefits to farmers and to the public regarding BMP choice and placement. To investigate the economic and spatial aspects of effective watershed management, we explore the cost-effectiveness and water quality outcomes of different BMP scenarios. BMP cost data are very important for this analysis, but are not available at the farm level. This data gathering plan is to determine costs for different BMPs in the Delaware and Upper Susquehanna watersheds for use in economic and combined economic-water quality models. The larger goal is to study farmer decision-making with respect to implementing BMPs to preserve water quality.
| Grant #: | 83359001-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $62,162 |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2007 - 01/01/2009 |
| Awardee: | Cornell University |
| Principal Investigator: | Tammo Steenhuis |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant, Competition Number: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-06-01, Research Support for Data Gathering for Dissertations on the Pollution Control Aspects of Environmental Economics |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Current and Emerging Issues Workshops
The recipient will host two workshops:
(1) Advantages and Disadvantages of Web-based Surveys: Many federal agencies demand monetary values for health and environmental improvements for use in benefit-cost analyses. Web-based surveys are becoming increasingly popular approaches for mounting contingent valuation surveys and choice experiments (e.g., conjoint analysis) to deliver such values. However, little is known about their advantages and disadvantages compared to other modes of survey administration. RFF will hold a workshop on web-based surveys and their comparison to other modes of survey administration, in the context of health and ecological benefit estimation. The purpose of the workshop would be to begin developing a common understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of this new survey method as well as protocols to minimize its drawbacks.
(2) A Workshop on Ecosystem Benefit Indicators: This workshop would address the topic of ecosystem benefit indicators. Benefit indicators are like ecological indicators, except that they measure the social benefits of ecological services. Ecosystem benefit indicators are a quantitative, but not monetary, approach to the assessment of habitats and land uses. Like ecological indicators, they summarize and quantify complex information. Like monetary assessment, they employ the principles of economic analysis. The workshop will address two main issues. First, what is the appropriate role of benefit indicators in ecosystem assessment? RFF will look at different assessment contexts (inter-agency consultations, outreach, rulemaking, budget justifications, and litigation) and consider the role of indicators in each. Second, RFF will explore methodological issues associated with the construction of benefit indicators, their validation, and aggregation into summary measures.
| Grant #: | 832299-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $77,950 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2005 – 07/31/2006 |
| Awardee: | Resources for the Future, Inc. |
| Principal Investigator: | Alan Krupnick |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Current and Emerging Issues Workshops
The goal of the proposed activities is to strengthen the field of environmental and resource economics through a variety of workshops and small conferences. A major part of the proposed set of workshops seeks to help PhD students develop and refine their dissertation topics within the field of environmental economics. Given that there are few such students on most campuses, there is great value to bringing them together to exchange perspectives and understanding of the field. Additionally, the topical workshops proposed here should seek to strengthen the field, not only by bringing accomplished scholars together, but also through the active participation of graduate students. Over the five year term of the award, the UC-Santa Barbara will host a series of four dissertation workshops (one every 18-20 months – 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009), continuing the highly successful “Occasional California Workshop in Environmental and Resource Economics and Policy.”
| Grant #: | 832300-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $214,106 |
| Period of Performance: | 01/01/2005 – 12/31/2009 |
| Awardee: | University of California – Santa Barbara |
| Principal Investigator: | Charles Kolstad |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Environmental Education Workshop: The Connection from Empirical Analysis to Welfare Evaluation
The last decade or two has seen an increasing interest in environmental research among academic economists. This interest has led to advances on a wide range of areas. For example, empirical researchers are taking advantage of the availability of new data sets and cheaper computing resources to estimate the economic effects of environmental policy. The design of such studies allow the researcher primarily to find "positive" economic effects on employment and productivity, on plant location and output, health outcomes, housing prices, and on emissions themselves. Simultaneously, theoretical researchers have made great strides in "normative" studies of environmental policy in analytical models that show conceptual effects of regulations on all the same economic variables. Further, these models also show effects on overall economic welfare. In many cases, these studies are the basis of larger computable general equilibrium models that employ stylized facts and elasticity parameters to show the numerical magnitudes of these conceptual effects on welfare. Rarely, however, are empirical and theoretical studies connected in a consistent way that uses available data to estimate exactly the parameters and other economic effects needed as inputs to analytical models that can be used to simulate effects of environmental policy not only on observable economic variables but also simultaneously on welfare. Even more rarely are such estimates used to calculate effects on the economic welfare of individual groups in our society, in order to show the distributional effects of environmental policy.
Such a connection is the purpose of our proposal for two-day workshops during the Summer Institute of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The recipient expects this workshop to push forward economic research on these important linkages in several ways. First, it will bring together the key empirical researchers with those doing analytical and other theoretical research for discussions about the connection from empirical work to the theory, and for discussion of individual papers. Second, those discussions will encourage empirical researchers to think about the implications of their research for welfare evaluation, and it will encourage analytical modelers to think about how to base models more concretely on empirical findings. Third, the announcement of future joint NBER-EPA workshops on these linkages will encourage researchers early in their work to think about and incorporate such linkages. Finally, it will bring different types of researchers together in a way that will allow them to discuss other joint work that would actually employ these methods simultaneously in a more comprehensive model.
| Grant #: | 832295-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $137,805 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/15/2005 - 02/14/2010 |
| Awardee: | National Bureau of Economic Research |
| Principal Investigator: | Don Fullerton |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Carl Pasurka, 202-566-2275 |
Title: Trading for Land-Based Environmental Services
In the U.S. and abroad, there is substantial interest in viewing trading schemes to provide incentives to agricultural and forestry sectors for the provision of environmental services. This interest has been stimulated by programs to control air emissions where trading has been quite successful. However, when market-based approaches are applied to controlling land-based emissions from non-point sources, which are difficult and costly to monitor, a suite of new issues arise. The proposed workshop will confront these challenges in two related areas: water quality and greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) offsets including carbon sequestration. The central economic intuition for environmental trading is that if the cost of reducing emissions differs widely across sources, trading offers potential for significant efficiency gains. Water quality and GHGE offsets are two prominent areas in which emissions trading is being proposed and implemented as part of the solution. For both of these environmental challenges, there is a belief that agriculture and forestry will be an important part of the solution and should be included in the trading market. For water quality, the agricultural sector is a largely unregulated source of water pollution and is thus viewed to be an essential player in improving the nation’s water quality. In the control of greenhouse gas emissions, the agricultural/forestry sectors are viewed as significant emitters of nitrous oxide and ethane as well as potentially cost-effective sequesterers of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Hence, analysts and policy makers are keenly interested in and partially engaged in using markets to create incentives to improve water quality and reduce GHGE. The recipient proposes a workshop designed to confront a number of common challenges for trading programs for land-based environmental services, with emphasis on greenhouse gas emission and water quality. The proposed workshop will bring together practitioners, policy makers, and analysts who have studied these challenges in an effort to find creative responses to these challenges and identify opportunities for improvements in these programs.
| Grant #: | 832343-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $25,779 |
| Period of Performance: | 02/01/2005 – 02/02/2007 |
| Awardee: | Texas Agricultural Experiment Station |
| Principal Investigator: | Richard Woodward |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Workshop in Environmental Economics and Policy
The Harvard University Environmental and Resource Economics Pre-Doctoral Student Workshop will bring graduate students in the early stages of their dissertation research together with junior and senior faculty members to comment on their work and provide guidance for their respective research agendas. The Workshop will target graduate students who have completed a significant portion of their course requirements and have begun work on their dissertations, but are not yet on the job market and represent a spectrum of graduate programs across the nation. The workshop will also include invited junior faculty members from across the country to serve as discussants and to participate in the workshop.
| Grant #: | 832324-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $10,850 |
| Period of Performance: | 09/15/2005 – 09/14/2006 |
| Awardee: | Harvard University |
| Principal Investigator: | Robert Stavins |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Camp Resources Workshop on Environmental Economics Research
Camp Resources is run by North Carolina State University’s Center for Environmental and Resource Economics Policy (CEnREP). The workshop has met continuously for eleven years and has been recognized as the prototype for small-scale meetings aimed at providing opportunities for young researchers to present on work in progress. The objective of the current project is to continue the Camp Resources approach to providing early feedback and mentoring for graduate students and young professionals. The proposal also expands the format to include a more substantial training dimension. In particular, we will re-structure Camp Resources as a combination dissertation and training workshop, thereby responding to two of the needs identified in the call for proposals. The primary objective of this proposal is to continue and strengthen the Camp Resources tradition. Throughout its history, the workshop has variously served as a vehicle for exploring alternative methods for learning new research methods, developing research agendas, and establishing closer connections between policy needs and research activities. The proposal to add a new dimension to the workshop scheduled for 2005 continues that practice of experimentation.
| Grant #: | 832363-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $79,422 |
| Period of Performance: | 04/18/2005 – 04/17/2007 |
| Awardee: | North Carolina State University |
| Principal Investigator: | V. Kerry Smith |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Innovations in Academic Communication at the Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop
The Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshops have been held in Ames, Iowa for the last five years. The workshop was initiated to bring together the numerous academic economists located in the Midwest that work primarily or in part on subjects related to environmental and resource economics. Prior to the establishment of the workshop, there was little formal communication among these scholars, except at large national conferences. The Heartland conference has provided a unique venue to environmental economists located in the Midwest to share research results and work in progress in an informal, yet rigorous academic environment. The workshop has been well-received and attendance has been strong. This proposal seeks funding to continue the success of the Heartland conference in fostering research in the environmental arena, while augmenting its format so as to enhance both the depth of discussion on topics of current policy concern and the quality of communications among conference participants.
| Grant #: | 832335-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $52,630 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/01/2005 – 05/31/2007 |
| Awardee: | Iowa State University |
| Principal Investigator: | Kathy Kling |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Climate Policy Without Cost
The Environmental Finance Center proposes to conduct a one and one half-day Environmental Economics Workshop, “Climate Policy Without Cost? Can Technology Solve the Climate Problem?” The workshop would present a synthesis of recent theoretical and empirical research on the microeconomics of technological change and draw out its implications for modeling the response of the US and world economies to alternative climate change policies. Participants will leave the workshop with: (1) a significantly enhanced understanding of the economics of technological change; (2) the information and background needed to evaluate the technological assumptions built into particular models; and (3) a broad perspective on the role of technology that would be useful when considering both priorities for future research and the implications of technological change for climate policy. The goal of the workshop is to bridge the gaps between: (1) research on innovation at the microeconomic level, (2) econometric measurements of technical change at the industry or economy-wide level, and (3) climate change policy.
| Grant #: | 832426-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $35,453 – funding shared with NCEE and USEPA, Office of Air and Radiation |
| Period of Performance: | 05/01/2005 – 05/10/2006 |
| Awardee: | Syracuse University |
| Principal Investigator: | Peter Wilcoxen |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Economic Workshops) |
| NCEE Contact: | Eric Smith – Office of Air and Radiation, 202-343-9200 |
Title: Managed Ecosystems and the Economics of Invasive Species
The proposed workshop will solicit papers to generate discussion among economists, other social scientists, ecologists, and biologists to further theoretical and empirical knowledge of the problems associated with invasive species prevention and mitigation policies and to identify key areas for further research. Three broad areas of research will be highlighted: (1) interactions between agricultural trade and invasive species policies; (2) incorporating ecology and biology into economic models for policy evaluation; and (3) examining the efficiency of policies and regulations for managing invasive species. The workshop will be open to papers examining such issues as the impacts of invasive species on managed and natural ecosystem services, commercially cultivated commodities, and valuable or endangered indigenous species; relative efficiency of alternative management, surveillance, and eradication policies; how trade agreements, increased trade, and travel have impacted the probability of invasive species introduction; the economic efficiency of exclusion programs in light of the increased risks of introduction; the characteristics of a cost-effective exclusion program; evaluations of tariffs and non-tariff barriers to international trade with respect to invasive species; evaluation of existing programs for preventing, managing, or eradicating invasive species; the efficiency of compensation programs for producer losses given eradication or mitigation policies; social welfare effects of invasive species; apportionment of responsibility for invasive species management among federal, state, and local governments; impacts of land-use changes, cropping patterns, other management decisions, etc. on the risk of and damage caused by invasions; cost-effectiveness of surveillance and early warning systems; and others of interest.
| Grant #: | 832308-01-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $24,990 |
| Period of Performance: | 03/01/2005 – 02/28/2006 |
| Awardee: | University of Maryland, College Park |
| Principal Investigator: | Loretta Lynch |
| Award Type: | Competitive Grant (solicitation: EPA-OPEI-NCEE-04-01, Environmental and Resource Econ |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: Valuation of Ecological Resources: Integration of Ecological Risk Assessment and Socio-Economics
The purpose of this grant is to support a workshop bringing together practitioners of ecological risk assessment, ecological/environmental economics, on the topic of "Valuation of Ecological Resources: Integration of Ecological Risk Assessment and Socio-Economics to Support Environmental Decisions." The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry periodically sponsors workshops known as Pellston Workshops, whose results are captured in book form. An earlier Pellston workshop on Ecological Risk Management noted that unless and until ecologists, ecological risk assessors, and the public recognize the need for a more quantitative assessment of value (economics) and what it can bring to the debate on what to protect and how to protect it, there will continue to be little or no consensus on scientific methodology to help decision-makers make ecological risk-based decisions (see Belzer, Chapter 6 in Stahl et al., 2001). This workshop will directly address the gap articulated by the earlier workshop.
| Grant #: | 83097501-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $25,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 07/01/2003 - 04/30/2004 |
| Awardee: | Society for Toxicology and Chemistry
Pensacola, FL
Gregory Schiefer |
| Award Type: | Non-competitive Grant |
| NCEE Contact: | Brian Heninger, 202-566-2270 Note: Staff from EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) are administering the award |
Title: Workshops on Environmental Policy Issues
This purpose of this grant is to support the AERE workshop program, a mechanism for discussing current, policy-relevant environmental and natural resource economics research issues. The program is geared to holding workshops on a focussed issue, relevant to regional policy concerns and research interests with presentations on state-of-the-art research. The workshops also bring together researchers with policy makers, for better dialogue. Participation by young professionals is also strongly encouraged.
| Grant #: | PI - 8330601 - 0 |
| Funded Amount: | $30,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 06/01/2003 - 05/31/2006 |
| Awardee: | Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE)
Washington, D.C.
Ian W. H. Parry |
| Award Type: | Non-competitive Grant |
| NCEE Contact: | Keith Sargent, 202-566-2276 |
Title: Environmental Valuation Reference Inventory (EVRI):
The purpose of this cooperative agreement is to maintain and expand the Environmental Value Reference Inventory (EVRI), a searchable storehouse of empirical studies on the economic value of environmental benefits and human health effects. EVRI was cooperatively developed by Environment Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a tool to help policy analysts use the benefits transfer approach, a cost-effective alternative to doing new valuation research. Our participation in EVRI's development through this agreement grants access to all interested environmental economics researchers and policy analysts in the U.S. for the duration of the award.
| Grant #: | X-83111301 |
| Funded Amount: | $40,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/03 - 08/01/04 |
| Award Type: | Non-competitive Cooperative Agreement |
| Awardee: | Environment Canada (Canadian Government)
Ottawa, Ontario
Greg MacComb |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |
Title: 2004 NAREA Workshop on Trade and the Environment
The purpose of this grant is to fund a workshop sponsored by the 2004 Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association on "International Trade and the Environment." The objective of the workshop is to stimulate research and discussion to improve our understanding of the complex interrelationships between international trade, natural resource use, and the environment, particularly as they relate to agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. U.S. Executive Order 13141 and the U.S. Trade Act of 2002 require environmental assessments of trade agreements during the negotiation process. Workshop proceedings will be published in a special issue of Agricultural and Resource Economics Review (ARER) if accepted after the journal’s normal review process.
| Grant #: | X7-83142201-0 |
| Funded Amount: | $20,000 |
| Period of Performance: | 08/01/03-07/29/04 |
| Award Type: | Non-competitive Grant |
| Awardee: | Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association
James Shortle, The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA |
| NCEE Contact: | Brett Snyder, Snyder.Brett@epa.gov, 202-566-2261 |