Presentation Abstracts 2015 Conference and Annual Meeting Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Contents Session 1 - Thursday, March 19, 9:00 - 10:30 ................................................................................... 3 A.1: What Should Policy Makers (and the Public) Know about Interpreting Regulatory BCA? (Marvin 309) ......................................................................................................... 3 B.1: Water Resources Management (Marvin 307) ............................................................... 3 C.1: Estimation of Cumulative Benefits and Costs of Regulation Using the "RegData" Database (Marvin 308) ................................................................................................... 5 D.1: Use of BCA in Setting Homeland Security Policy (Marvin 413-414) ...................... 6 E.1: Social Policy BCA: Assessing Child Welfare and Justice Programs (Marvin 310) .......................................................................................................................................................... 8 Session 2 - Thursday, March 19, 10:45 - 12:15............................................................................... 10 A.2: Benefit-Cost Analysis and Health Care: A Conversation with David Cutler and Sherry Glied (Marvin 309) ................................................................................................................ 10 B.2: Decision Tools for Analyzing Uncertain Futures (Marvin 307).............................. 10 C.2: Transportation: Program and Project Assessments (Marvin 308) ....................... 11 D.2: The Nexus between Health Effects Studies and Benefits (Marvin 413-414) ...... 12 E.2: Perspectives on Implementing Benefit Cost Analysis in Climate Assessment (Marvin 310) ......................................................................................................................................... 14 Session 3 - Thursday, March 19, 2:00 - 3:30 ................................................................................... 16 A.3: Skills for the Next Generation: A Conversation between Senior Government Economists and Public Policy School Leaders (Marvin 309)................................................. 16 B.3: Assessing Benefits for Policies that Reduce Health Risks (Marvin 307) ........... 16 C.3: Development and Miscellaneous Regulatory Issues (Marvin 308) ...................... 18 D.3: The Valuation of Ecological Goods and Services in Support of Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 413-414) ................................................................................................................ 19 E.3: Climate Policy Benefits Issues (Marvin 310) .............................................................. 21 Session 4 - Thursday, March 19, 3:45 - 5:15 ................................................................................... 23 A.4: Estimating the Benefits of Policies that Address Addictive Goods (Marvin 309) 23 B.4: Benefits, Costs and Labor Markets (Marvin 307) ...................................................... 23 C.4: Benefit-Cost Practices and Discounting Issues (Marvin 308) ............................... 25 D.4: Electricity Sector Optimization (Marvin 413-414) ...................................................... 27 E.4: Non-Market Recreational Welfare Effects of Changes in the Diversity and Abundance of Species (Marvin 310) ............................................................................................. 28 Session 5 - Friday, March 20, 9:00 - 10:30 ....................................................................................... 30 1 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier A.5: Financial Benefits of Remediation (Marvin 309) ....................................................... 31 B.5: Economics Frontiers and Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 307) ............................ 32 C.5: Finance Issues (Marvin 308) ........................................................................................... 34 D.5: Economic Evaluation of Medical Interventions (Marvin 413-414) ........................ 36 E.5: Methodological Approaches to Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 310) ................... 38 Session 6 - Friday, March 20, 10:45 - 12:15..................................................................................... 40 A.6: Valuing Reductions in Morbidity and Mortality (Marvin 309) ................................. 40 B.6: Food and Water Issues (Marvin 307) ............................................................................ 42 C.6: Local Policy Issues (Marvin 308) ................................................................................... 43 D.6: Real Option Value and Federal Offshore Leasing (Marvin 413-414) .................... 45 E.6: International Benefit-Cost Analysis Issues (Marvin 310) ........................................ 46 Session 7 - Friday, March 20, 2:00 - 3:30 ......................................................................................... 48 A.7: Retrospective BCA of Federal Rules (Marvin 309) ................................................... 48 B.7: Law and Economics Perspectives on Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 307) ....... 48 C.7: Preliminary Recommendations from the 2nd Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine (Marvin 308).................................................................................................. 50 D.7:Cost-Effective Air Quality Strategies (Marvin 413-414) ............................................ 50 E.7: Valuing Outcomes and Performing BCA for Social Policy Intervention (Marvin 310) ........................................................................................................................................................ 52 Session 8 - Friday, March 20, 3:45-5:15 p.m. .................................................................................. 55 A.8: Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Analysis of Risk Regulations (Marvin 309) ......................................................................................................................................... 55 B.8:Retrospective Review of Federal Regulations (Marvin 307) ................................... 55 C.8: State and Local Benefit-Cost Issues (Marvin 308) .................................................... 57 D.8: Assessing Benefits in Consumer Protection Regulation (Marvin 302) ............... 58 E.8: The Effectiveness of Policies Involving Health Warning Labels and Signage: Cigarettes, e-Cigarettes, and Alcohol (Marvin 310) .................................................................. 59 2 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Session 1 - Thursday, March 19, 9:00 - 10:30 A.1: What Should Policy Makers (and the Public) Know about Interpreting Regulatory BCA? (Marvin 309) Chair: Susan Dudley ([email protected]), The George Washington University Panelists to Include: 1. Richard Belzer ([email protected]), Regulatory Checkbook 2. Glenn Blomquist ([email protected]), University of Kentucky 3. Chris Carrigan ([email protected]), The George Washington University 4. Tony Cox ([email protected]), Cox Associates 5. Peter Linquiti ([email protected]), The George Washington University 6. Brian Mannix ([email protected]), The George Washington University Participants from a January 2015 discussion will discuss what policy makers need to know to understand and interpret RIAs. B.1: Water Resources Management (Marvin 307) Chair: William Wheeler ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presentations: 1. Economic Assessment of Climate Change Adaptation Pilot Studies in the Great Lakes Region, Tess Forsell* ([email protected]), Eastern Research Group; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Service Center; Horsley Witten Group, Inc. The economic effects of flooding from extreme precipitation events are being experienced throughout the Great Lakes region. The purpose of this study was to assess the economic costs and benefits of green infrastructure (GI) as a method of reducing the negative effects of flooding in Duluth, Minnesota, and Toledo, Ohio. A secondary purpose of the study was to develop an analytical framework that can be applied in other communities to 1) assess how their community may be impacted by flooding with increased precipitation, 2) consider the range of available green infrastructure and land use policy options to reduce flooding, and 3) identify the benefits that can be realized by implementing GI. Flooding modeled under current and future precipitation scenarios was coupled with current and future land use conditions to account for increased impervious surfaces that can further increase stormwater runoff volumes and peak flows. Next, flooding under current and future scenarios was modeled and associated damages were estimated using assumptions about additional flood storage that could be provided through the implementation of GI. The amount of reduced damages associated with flood mitigation strategies is represented as “benefits” (i.e., the difference between the economic impact of flooding without flood mitigation and the economic impact with the implementation of flood mitigation infrastructure). Monetized benefits include: 3 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier reduced building damages; increased recreational use; reduced flood damaged land restoration costs; and reduced storm sewer infrastructure costs. The total present value and annualized benefits are monetized over 20 years and 50 years. In Duluth, the community where more benefits could be monetized, the 50-year effects are estimated to be $4.17 million in costs and $4.68 million in benefits. In this comparison benefits exceed costs, providing evidence in favor of implementing the GI project. 2. Joint Effects of Storm Surge and Sea-Level Risk on U.S. Coasts, Lindsay Ludwig* ([email protected]) and James Neumann, Industrial Economics; Kerry Emanuel and Sai Ravela, WindRisk Tech and MIT; Paul Kirshen, University of New Hampshire; Kirk Bosma, Woods Hole Group; and Jeremy Martinich, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Recent literature, the US Global Change Research Program’s National Climate Assessment, and recent events, such as Hurricane Sandy, highlight the need to take better account of both storm surge and sea-level rise (SLR) in assessing coastal risks of climate change. This study combines three models – a tropical cyclone simulation model; a storm surge model; and a model for economic impact and adaptation – to estimate the joint effects of storm surge and SLR for the US coast through 2100. The model is tested using multiple SLR scenarios, including those incorporating estimates of dynamic ice-sheet melting, two global greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policy scenarios, and multiple general circulation model climate sensitivities. The results illustrate that a large area of coastal land and property is at risk of damage from storm surge today; that land area and economic value at risk expands over time as seas rise and as storms become more intense; that adaptation is a cost-effective response to this risk, but residual impacts remain after adaptation measures are in place; that incorporating site-specific episodic storm surge increases national damage estimates by a factor of two relative to SLR-only estimates, with greater impact on the East and Gulf coasts; and that mitigation of GHGs contributes to significant lessening of damages. For a mid-range climate-sensitivity scenario that incorporates dynamic ice sheet melting, the approach yields national estimates of the impacts of storm surge and SLR of $990 billion through 2100 (net of adaptation, cumulative undiscounted 2005$); GHG mitigation policy reduces the impacts of the midrange climate-sensitivity estimates by $84 to $100 billion. 3. Assessing the Distributional Consequences of Premium and Claims Payments in the National Flood Insurance Program, Okmyung Bin* ([email protected]) and John A. Bishop, East Carolina University; Carolyn Kousky, Resources for the Future This study examines the redistributional effects of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), i.e. who benefits and who bears the costs of the NFIP, using a national database of premium, coverage, and claim payments at the zip code level between 2001 and 2009. Some argue the program provides an important benefit to low income households living in low lying areas in communities like those along the Mississippi River system, while others believe that it acts as a subsidy to the wealthy owners of beach homes. A recent study, based on more than 25 years of the NFIP premium and claims data to determine how the program’s price and payouts correlate to per-capita county income, finds no evidence that the NFIP disproportionally advantages richer counties (Bin, Bishop, and Kousky, Public Finance Review 2012). Although such finding is a useful first-order assessment, more detailed analysis is warranted since claims payments tend to be concentrated on a few policies such as repetitive loss properties. Our finding based on more disaggregated data should help insurance practitioners and policy makers make informed policy decisions regarding the flood insurance program. 4. Economic Evaluation of Community Water Fluoridation: A Community Guide Systematic Review, Tao Ran* ([email protected]), Sajal Chattopadhyay and Randy Elder, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 4 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Previous systematic review of the effectiveness of community water fluoridation (CWF) showed that it reduced dental caries across populations, and a 2002 economic review found from a societal perspective that CWF saved money. However, the effectiveness of CWF has decreased from around 50% in the 1970s to around 25% in the 1990s. Re-examining the benefits and costs of CWF is therefore necessary. Using methods developed for Guide to Community Preventive Services economic reviews, 564 papers were identified from January 1995 to November 2013. Ten studies were included in the current review, with four covering intervention benefits only and another six providing both costs and benefits information. Additionally, two of the six studies analyzed the costeffectiveness of CWF. For all four benefit-only studies, dental treatments in various forms decreased with the presence of CWF. For the remaining six studies, per capita annual intervention cost ranged from $0.11 to $4.89 in 2013 U.S. dollars (without an outlier). Variation in costs was mainly caused by community population size, with decreasing cost associated with increasing community population. Per capita annual benefits in the six studies ranged from $5.45 to $139.78. Variation in benefits was mainly due to the numbers and types of benefit components. Benefit-cost ratio ranged from 1.12:1 to 135:1, and the ratio was positively associated with community population size. The economic benefit of CWF exceeded the intervention cost. Further, benefit-cost ratio increased with the community population size. C.1: Estimation of Cumulative Benefits and Costs of Regulation Using the "RegData" Database (Marvin 308) Chair: James Broughel ([email protected]), George Mason University Presentations: 1. RegData: A Numerical Database on Industry-Specific Regulations for All U.S. Industries and Federal Regulations, 1997-2012, Patrick McLaughlin* ([email protected]) and Omar Al-Ubaydli, George Mason University We introduce RegData, formerly known as the Industry-specific Regulatory Constraint Database. RegData annually quantifies federal regulations by industry and by regulatory agency for all federal regulations from 1997 to 2012. The quantification of regulations at the industry level for all industries is without precedent. RegData measures regulation for industries at the two-, three-, and four-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) levels. We created this database using text analysis to count binding constraints in the wording of regulations, as codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, and to measure the applicability of regulatory text to different industries. We validate our measures of regulation by examining known episodes of regulatory growth and deregulation as well as comparing our measures to an existing, cross-sectional measure of regulation. We then demonstrate several plausible relations between industry regulation and variables of economic interest. Researchers can use this database to study the determinants of industry regulations and to study regulations’ effects on a massive array of dependent variables, both across industries and across time. 2. Estimating Industry- and Agency-Specific Cumulative Costs and Benefits with RegData, Antony Davies* ([email protected]), Duquesne University; Patrick McLaughlin, George Mason University 5 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Using RegData 2.0, we exploit variation in cumulated regulation across industries, agencies, and time to estimate the cost, in terms of lost productivity, from regulatory accumulation to the benefits, in terms of outcomes achieved. While agencies are sometimes required to estimate costs and benefits of proposed regulations prior to those regulations being enacted, we are unaware of any expost analyses that look at the costs and benefits that actually accrued from regulatory accumulation. We examine a set of major agencies for which the likely desired outcome of regulations is generally known. For example, the paper will compare an estimate of the lost productivity due to OSHA regulations to the likely desired outcome--improvements in workplace safety, as reflected in workplace illness, injury, and fatality data. The results will inform both retrospective and prospective review efforts by presenting a credible, empirical methodology for estimating the cumulative impact of regulation (positive or negative). 3. The Aggregate Cost of Regulations: A Structural Estimation of a Tractable Multi-Sector Endogenous Growth Model, Bentley Coffey* ([email protected]), University of South Carolina; Patrick McLaughlin; Pietro Peretto, Duke University We estimate the effects of federal regulation on industry-specific value-added to GDP using RegData 2.0 for a panel of 42 industries over 35 years (1977 – 2011). Our estimation is performed within the structure of a Schumpeterian model of endogenous growth, which produces closed-form solutions despite the complications inherent in its multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium structure. To capture the effect of regulations on firms, we treat regulations as constraints in firms’ production processes that raise fixed costs and decrease the firm’s productivity. We then estimate the parameters of this model using national and sector-specific macroeconomic data joined with RegData 2.0, which measures the incidence of regulations on industries based on text analysis of federal regulatory code. With estimates of the model’s parameters fitted to real data, we can confidently conduct counter-factual experiments on alternative regulatory environments and discuss the policy implications of our findings. 4. Does Regulation Enhance or Inhibit Turnover of Firms by Industry? Thomas Stratmann* ([email protected]), Matt Mitchell and Patrick McLaughlin, George Mason University A large body of research suggests that churn—the turnover of top firms within an industry—is the mark of a competitive, dynamic, and healthy economy. Among other things, churn has been linked to technological innovation, competitive pricing, and economic growth. The economic theory of regulation offers ambiguous predictions about the relationship between government regulation and churn. Regulation may be a disruptive force, breaking up firms and discouraging integration (Posner 1971). Or, it may be a monopolizing force, erecting barriers to entry (Stigler 1971). We employ RegData 2.0, a new dataset tracking regulatory trends by industry and agency over time, to test the relationship between regulation and churn across 211 U.S. industries over the time period 1997 2011. We show that, on average, the accumulation of regulation specific to an industry reduces the churn of that industry—implying a hidden but substantial economic cost of regulatory accumulation. Our results are consistent with the ideas that regulations create barriers to entry, protect incumbent firms, and are disproportionately costly on small entities such as new firms and start-ups. D.1: Use of BCA in Setting Homeland Security Policy (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Tony Homan ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Transportation 6 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Presentations: 1. The Social Value of Cybersecurity, Daniela Silitra* ([email protected]) and Haeme Nam, MITRE Corporation Cybersecurity has been a hot topic over the past few years. Its broad spectrum leads to array of studies in various areas. Similarly, measuring social value is becoming more and more accepted practice; especially in a period of unprecedented budget cuts. This paper will attempt to measure the social value of cybersecurity in two areas by employing value added measuring methodology. The two areas of interest is in national economy; and Corporate America. Value measuring criteria will be identified for each of these areas; such as number of cyber jobs created or limited loss of revenue due to cyber-attacks, and then assessed them accordingly. In addition, an extension of this study will be conducted to assess social value of cybersecurity to the public-at-large. The initial study or phase I of the study will be to assess the social value of cybersecurity in areas of national economy and corporate America. Phase II of the study, which assess the social value of cybersecurity to the public-at-large will be conducted for next year’s presentation. 2. A Literature Review and Proposed Method of Measuring a Reduction in Vulnerability, Alex Moscoso* ([email protected]), U.S. Transportation Security Administration According to National Infrastructure Protection Plan 2013, risk is defined as a function of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. This relationship is used by Federal government agencies within the Department of Homeland Security to assess risks associated with certain terrorist attacks scenarios, including benefit-cost analyses in rulemaking. In developing a standard methodology to quantify risk, it is necessary to quantify the threat to a target, its vulnerability, and the consequence of a successful attack. While estimating the economic consequences of a successful attack can be done by using the standard value of statistical life, costs of injuries and property damage; accurate quantitative measurements for threat and vulnerability are more elusive. With regards to rulemaking, economists seek to measure the reduction in vulnerability from the introduction of certain mitigation measures. Quantifying the effectiveness of a specific mitigation measure used to protect the homeland is difficult task for many reasons: (1) an individual measure is usually part of a vast security system where changes to one component affects other interconnecting components to varying degrees; (2) measuring individual components’ cascading effects through a layered security system proves challenging; and (3) while technology effectiveness can be tested, tracing the impacts of a policy is difficult. This research will present findings from a literature review on the current methods of measuring vulnerability. It will also present a working method of measuring vulnerability using available data, fault tree analysis to map large security systems, and Monte Carlo simulations to replicate terrorist attacks scenarios. This research will further the discussion on quantifying vulnerability reduction by examining what has already been accomplished in the field and proposing a method based on those accomplishments. 3. Estimating Benefits of Maritime Safety Training Programs, Ali Gungor* ([email protected]), U.S. Coast Guard U.S. merchant mariners and their employers spend significant time and money on safety training programs each year due to international conventions or simply following best industry practices. In 2013, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) published a final rule that brings additional training requirements with significant costs to the mariners and the industry overall following the international standards set by the International Maritime Organization’s Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention and their amendments of 1995 and 2010. Against significant annual costs that had already been incurred since 1997 and more to be incurred after the publication of this final rule, however, USCG did not estimate any quantifiable or monetized benefits that could 7 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier be attributed to maritime safety training. Rather, the regulatory impact analyses since 2011 used and provided detailed break-even analyses, transfer benefits and qualitative benefits among other benefit estimation methods. This presentation discusses the challenges of estimating benefits of maritime safety training programs over the last two decades. In particular, all subject matter experts attempted to answer this question: “does safety training save lives?” and the follow-up question: “if yes or maybe, how do you quantify or monetize them?” 4. Estimating the Cumulative Impact of Coast Guard Regulations Under Executive Order 13563, Rosemarie Odom* ([email protected]), Paul Large and Ali Gungor, U.S. Coast Guard In Executive Order 13563 (January 18, 2011), agencies are directed to tailor regulations to take into account (to the extent practicable) cumulative costs of regulations. As a tool to inform the analysis of cumulative costs of regulation, Coast Guard has developed a Cumulative Impacts Database, which contains cost and benefit information on the final regulatory actions that Coast Guard has promulgated since 1993. The CID allows Coast Guard to aggregate the estimated costs of its regulations by diverse factors. The aggregated data indicates that 92% of the cost of Coast Guard regulations over the past 20 years results from two statutory mandates: the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the Marine Transportation Security Act. This presentation describes and provides examples of the contents of the Cumulative Impacts Database and summarizes some of the key findings. The presentation also discusses the limitations of using the results from database, particularly the challenge of applying the aggregate results to individual owners and operators. E.1: Social Policy BCA: Assessing Child Welfare and Justice Programs (Marvin 310) Chair: Stuart Shapiro ([email protected]), Rutgers University Discussant: Brian Bumbarger ([email protected]), Pennsylvania State University Presentations: 1. A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the 2009 Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York City, Joshua Rinaldi* ([email protected]), Vera Institute of Justice The 2009 drug law reforms (DLR) in New York State changed how drug crimes were processed in the New York City criminal justice system by removing mandatory minimum sentences for defendants facing a range of felony drug and property charges. It also created new options to divert defendants to drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration. In addition to implementation and impact evaluations, the Vera Institute of Justice conducted a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to explore the economic implications of DLR in New York City. The CBA computes costs and benefits based on Vera’s impact evaluation, which used administrative records from multiple city and state agencies to track outcomes for cases disposed during two equivalent time periods, pre- and post-DLR. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was used to select comparable samples, controlling for baseline differences in case and individual level characteristics. Costs and benefits were measured from the perspectives of taxpayers and victims for a three-year follow-up period post arrest. Taxpayer costs include law enforcement, courts, jail, prison, probation, parole, and drug treatment. Victimization costs were measured by calculating the reform’s impact on 8 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier the tangible and intangible costs of crime. This presentation will describe the cost-benefit methodology, results, and implications for policy-making. 2. Doing Well, While Doing Good: A Benefit Cost Analysis of Private Foundation Investment in a Social Bond Impact Program to Reduce Recidivism, Joseph Cordes* ([email protected]), The George Washington University; William Winfrey, HCM Strategists/EPI Nonprofit foundations are increasingly turning to benefit-cost analysis as a means of evaluating the impact of their grants. A large nonprofit foundation located in the Northeastern United States has participated in a large social impact bond program, investing $1.5 million out of a total of $27 million in a project intended to reduce recidivism. Our paper uses benefit cost analysis, undertaken from the perspective of the foundation, to evaluate the impact of the foundation’s investment in the social impact bond experiment. The first step in the evaluation is to undertake a benefit cost analysis of the intervention itself. Although the analysis draws on standard practices for defining and measuring the social costs and benefits of the intervention, the issue of which discount rate to use in the analysis is less well-defined. The options include: the social discount rate used to evaluate the program if it were to undertaken in the public sector; a discount rate based on the time preference of the foundation; or a discount rate reflecting the opportunity cost to the foundation of investing its funds in the social impact bond program. We explore this question by formulating a simple model of a foundation’s “social investment problem”. We show that the appropriate discount rate will depend on: (a) the foundation’s objective (social welfare) function, as defined by its mission; (b) the financial return to the foundation’s endowment, and (c) tax rules governing foundation payout. An additional issue that needs to be addressed is that of estimating the impact of the specific foundation’s participation as one of several entities providing funds for the intervention. Our approach builds on that suggested by Brest, et. al. (2004). The results of our base case analysis indicate that participating in the social impact bond experiment is justified, even at discount rates that are higher than would be used to evaluate an equivalent project financed with public funds. We also undertake a Monte Carlo simulation to explore the robustness of these results to different values for components of social benefits and costs. 3. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Supportive Housing for Child Welfare Involved Families, Josh Leopold* ([email protected]), Mary Cunningham and Mike Pergamit, Urban Institute This presentation will focus on practical challenges of designing and implementing a benefit-cost analysis for a housing intervention targeted high-needs families with involvement in multiple systems. The Supportive Housing for Child-Welfare Involved Families: a Research Partnership (SHARP) evaluation is a randomized controlled trial in five demonstration sites: Memphis, TN, Cedar Rapids, IA, Broward County, FL, San Francisco, CA, and Connecticut. The demonstration, funded by the Children’s Bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides supportive housing (permanent housing paired with case management and voluntary services) to families with a history of homelessness and child welfare involvement. The costs of the intervention are expected to be higher than the services provided through usual care by the child welfare system. However, if the program works as intended it is expected to reduce utilization of homeless and child welfare services and produce long-term benefits in child and adult well-being and productivity. The Urban Institute, with support from Dr. Bob Plotnick at the Evans School of Public Affairs, is conducting a benefit-cost analysis of the demonstration to determine whether, and under what conditions, the benefits of the intervention outweigh the costs of producing them. The analysis will distinguish between costs and benefits that accrue directly to families as well as publicly-funded systems (local, state, and federal) and society at-large. For the primary cost domains— 9 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier homelessness, child welfare, and supportive housing—the evaluators will use the “ingredients method” to estimate actual unit costs through direct data collection. For secondary domains, such as public benefits, health care, and education, the evaluators will rely on the literature to estimate unit costs. During this presentation, the evaluators will outline the methods being used for the benefitcost analysis to determine unit costs and utilization and solicit participant feedback on how to address anticipated challenges. Session 2 - Thursday, March 19, 10:45 - 12:15 A.2: Benefit-Cost Analysis and Health Care: A Conversation with David Cutler and Sherry Glied (Marvin 309) Chair: Amber Jessup ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panelists to Include: 1. David Cutler ([email protected]), Harvard University 2. Sherry Glied ([email protected]), New York University Health care expenditures account for almost 20 percent of the U.S. gross national product and are among the fastest growing components of the Federal budget. Yet we rarely see benefit-cost analysis used to support related policy decisions or decisions to subsidize particular treatments. This session involves a moderated discussion with two leading health care experts on the role of benefitcost analysis in health care, including both its advantages and limitations in this context. B.2: Decision Tools for Analyzing Uncertain Futures (Marvin 307) Chair: Susan Dudley ([email protected]), The George Washington University Panelists to Include: 1. Chris Carrigan ([email protected]), The George Washington University 2. Tony Cox ([email protected]), Cox Associates 3. Heidi King ([email protected]), GE Capital 4. Peter Linquiti ([email protected]), The George Washington University 5. Brian Mannix ([email protected]), The George Washington University 6. Anne Smith ([email protected]), NERA This interdisciplinary panel will explore the key issues and best practices for understanding and responding to uncertain, distant, global events. What types of events/risk should policy makers be concerned about? Can benefit-cost analysis (BCA) be improved as a decision-making tool applied to potentially significant, global future risks to wellbeing? What are best practices for addressing 10 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier uncertainty and understanding risk? How should policy makers think about risk management? What are the challenges and possible techniques for discounting different outcomes? C.2: Transportation: Program and Project Assessments (Marvin 308) Chair: Doug Schleffler ([email protected]), U.S. Coast Guard Discussant: Ryan Endorf ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Transportation Presentations: 1. Social Welfare Analysis of Investment Public-Private Partnership Approaches for Transportation Projects, R. Richard Geddes* ([email protected]), Omid Rouhani, and H. Oliver Gao, Cornell University; Germà Bel, University of Barcelona This paper has two objectives: (1) to introduce a new approach to gaining widespread support for comprehensive road pricing; and (2) to develop a detailed social welfare analysis for road pricing schemes. We first describe a new approach to garnering support for system-wide road pricing, which we refer to as an investment public-private partnership, or IP3. This approach returns a significant portion of the economic value created by road pricing back to its citizen-owners. Next, we present a social welfare framework that estimates the benefits and costs of using the IP3 approach on an urban transportation network. Policy makers typically evaluate public-private partnership (P3) projects using Value for Money (VfM) analysis. However, a P3 project’s impact on overall social welfare provides a more comprehensive evaluation criterion. Apart from several theoretical studies, a detailed social welfare analysis that includes all major P3 project stakeholders is lacking. Using Fresno City’s transportation system as our case study, we show that system-optimal tolling scenarios favor average users, but that government—and consequently taxpayers—would pay for costly tolling systems. In contrast, unlimited profit–maximizing tolls raise substantial profits for government, for the infrastructure’s citizen-owners, and for the private sector, but the average user is worse off. From a social welfare perspective, one should search for a Pareto-improvement under which all major stakeholders are better off. Our estimates indicate that a mixed private and public tolling scheme offers such an improvement. A mixed scheme results in the highest social welfare among all scenarios unless the weight placed on motorists’ (i.e., transportation users’) welfare is very low or the weight placed on residents’ welfare is very high relative to the weight of other stakeholders. 2. Marine Transportation Delays: Lock-Closure Case Study Meta-Analysis, Kathryn Connelly* ([email protected]), Rolling Bay; Michael Trombley, U.S. Coast Guard Starting in 2005, the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ Navigation Economic Technologies Program compiled a series of reports detailing shipper and carrier responses to maintenance related lock closures on shipping channels. Under a meta-analysis framework, we evaluated four of these case studies with an emphasis on information that would be useful in a cost benefit analysis environment. We used the information gathered from the case studies' industry surveys to put together the estimated costs to industry of lock closures based on the environment of the lock and the circumstance of closure. In an attempt to both understand and elucidate the underlying common structure of delay and industry related costs, we then constructed a framework with which we sought to apply across the case studies. Furthermore, we used our findings to compare the costs across incidents to garner insight into the industry’s daily activities with respect to efficiency of freight movement and the optimization of resource allocation. Through our analysis we discovered that one of the most influential factors on cost of delay was preparation and anticipation of a closure. 11 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Focusing on preparation and anticipation of a lock closure can predict how industry will react to vessel incidents that close waterways, the results of which can influence safety policies and how the USACE and industry can mitigate impacts from lock closures. 3. Use of Economic Evaluation Methods for Transportation Project Appraisal: Application of a 3-Dimensional Space-Time Framework, Glen Weisbrod* ([email protected]), Economic Development Research Group, Inc. The systematic analysis of economic benefits, costs and impacts has an important role to play in infrastructure planning. But all too frequently, decision-making relies upon less systematic judgment calls, in part because of confusion regarding what seems to be competing approaches featuring benefit-cost, economic impact and financial analysis methods. Transportation planners see proponents advocating for specific techniques, even reaching to show how each analysis technique can address issues usually in the domain of the other – such as the inclusion of non-pecuniary social welfare impacts in macroeconomic models, or the inclusion of economic geography shifts in benefitcost studies. However, the single method approaches are ultimately seen as inadequate because they cannot address all of the multi-faceted information requirements of various stages of the planning process. This presentation (and an accompanying paper) will present a critical review of the application of economic analysis techniques – benefit-cost analysis, economic impact analysis, and financial cash flow analysis -- for transportation infrastructure decision-making. It will do so by presenting a formal framework for viewing these various economic analysis techniques in terms of how they differently cover a three dimensional universe of space, time and impact elements. It will then show how the various analysis techniques can be matched to the stages of planning, prioritizing and funding projects, along with their associated stakeholder issues and spatial and temporal information requirements. There are also implications of this framework for the valuation of economic benefits and costs, as they are affected by the breadth of study areas, time periods and impact elements to be covered. Actual cases from statewide transportation planning studies will be used to illustrate these points. The presentation will end by showing examples of how a unified analysis framework can reinforce the complementary aspects of benefit-cost, economic impact and financial analysis for effective transportation decision-making. D.2: The Nexus between Health Effects Studies and Benefits (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Randall Lutter ([email protected]), Resources for the Future and University of Virginia Discussant: Arnold Harberger ([email protected]), UCLA Presentations: 1. An Objective and BCA-Compliant Definition of 'Adverse Effect', Richard Belzer* ([email protected]), Regulatory Checkbook In virtually every case, benefit-cost practitioners in environmental health rely on the outputs of risk assessment as inputs for benefit (and sometimes cost) estimation. This practice has numerous deficiencies, most notably that human health risk assessments are incompatible with BCA because they are neither intended nor performed for the purpose of generating unbiased risk estimates. As a 2004 USEPA staff paper put it, “EPA seeks to adequately protect public and environmental health by ensuring that risk is not likely to be underestimated” (emphasis in original) and therefore, “EPA’s policy is that risk assessments should not knowingly underestimate or grossly overestimate risks.” 12 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier This means every EPA risk assessment is intentionally biased, and furthermore, risks cannot be compared because the amount of embedded bias is variable and unknown. This paper extends the literature by identifying, and proposing a science-based correction for, an even more fundamental deficiency in human health risk assessment: the definition of adverse effect. Virtually every human health risk assessment includes at least one biological endpoint that its authors have defined as adverse. However, neither the technical fields of toxicology and epidemiology nor the practical field of risk assessment has an objective definition of adverse effect. While some endpoints are unambiguously adverse (e.g., mortality, cancer), at the margin adversity is determined subjectively by the scientists and practitioners who perform risk assessments. These determinations often are highly controversial because they incorporate the personal policy judgments of scientists and risk assessment practitioners, or of the institutions for which he work. A fairly simple remedy is available, one that grounds the definition of adverse effect in science and conveniently is also compatible with benefit-cost analysis. An adverse effect should be defined as any human health condition that a consumer is willing to pay to avoid. Two corollaries are self-evident: (1) Any effect for which a consumer would pay to experience is per se beneficial; (2) An effect for which a consumer would pay nothing to experience or avoid is neither beneficial nor adverse. This presentation will explain the logic behind the proposal and identify several technical and practical challenges that must be addressed to implement it. 2. On the Importance of Discarded Inter-Maneuver Variance in the Estimation of Benefits from Reduced Exposure to Ambient Air Pollutants, R. Jeffrey Lewis* ([email protected]), ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences; Richard Belzer, Regulatory Checkbook Estimates of the health benefits of air pollution regulations depend substantially on quantitative risk assessments. These risk assessments, in turn, often depend on forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume (FEV1) data obtained in chamber studies or from observational epidemiology. All studies in the field that regulatory authorities consider reliable use a research protocol developed by the American Thoracic Society (e.g., Miller et al., 2005).1 That protocol calls for obtaining three to eight clinically acceptable FVC and FEV1 measurements (called “maneuvers”). However, published studies report and analyze only a single value (often the mean) representing these multiple clinically acceptable maneuvers. In short, the inherent variability across maneuvers within each FVC/FEV1 test is routinely discarded. This paper explores the consequences of discarding this variability. It is hypothesized that statistical comparisons of individual differences in pulmonary function, across chamber tests or ambient concentrations, would be substantially different if within-test inter-maneuver variability were retained and included in the data analysis. Ceteris paribus, discarding variability is expected to artificially increase calculated statistical significance, resulting in non-significant differences in pulmonary function being incorrectly characterized as statistically significant. Non-significant population-level differences in pulmonary function also will be incorrectly described as statistically significant. If these hypotheses are confirmed, scientific expressions of confidence that observed associations are causal would have to be downgraded. That would have important consequences for the estimation of health benefits resulting from small changes in ambient pollutant concentrations. 3. Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions from Traffic Accidents and Air Pollution Simultaneously, Luis Cifuentes* ([email protected]), L. Rizzi, C. Cabrera, M. Browne, and P. Iglesias, Universidad Católica de Chile Since 1974 all public infrastructure investment decisions in Chile are subject to a formal cost-benefit analysis. Costs are quantified using social prices. Non-monetary benefits have historically considered mainly travel time saved by the population. The responsibility of conducting these analyses, and proposing the methods and key parameters (such as the social discount rate) is within the Ministry of Social Development. In 1994, the General Environment Law was enacted, 13 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier establishing the basic environmental management instruments (environmental quality standards, emission standards, pollution abatement plans, among others) available to the authority. The law requires that the application of any of these instruments undergo an assessment of their economic and social impacts. Though not explicitly required, many of these assessments have included a cost benefit analysis. The Ministry of Environment performs these assessments. A key element for the results of both types of analyses is the social willingness to pay for reductions of premature mortality risks arising from reduction in fatal accidents, and from ambient air pollution reduction. This presentation reports the design, application and results of a discrete choice survey to elicit WTP for reductions in mortality risks from traffic accidents and from cardiovascular disease attributable to air pollution. The survey was applied to a representative sample of Chilean population. In pilot tests it was found that the capacity of low education segments of the population to understand the risk themselves and much less their reduction was limited, so the instrument had to be simplified. Since the study was developed under the auspice of the Ministry of the Environment in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development, it is expected that the results of the survey will help public regulators better evaluate decisions regarding infrastructure and environmental quality. E.2: Perspectives on Implementing Benefit Cost Analysis in Climate Assessment (Marvin 310) Chair: Fran Sussman ([email protected]), ICF International Presentations: 1. State of the Literature on Economic Impacts and Adaptation at the Sectoral Level in the U.S., James Neumann* ([email protected]), Industrial Economics; Kenneth Strzepek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This paper discusses the current literature on impacts and adaptation costs at the sectoral level. The focus is primarily the U.S., but includes examples on international approaches where they highlight key differences or other relevant demonstrations of method and data use. The paper provides an overall framework that addresses the components of economic impacts, including definitions of impacts, adaptation costs and residual damages. The paper then focuses on understanding the current breadth and depth of the literature that exists to characterize what we know about each key sector (agriculture, coastal resources, water resources, infrastructure, forestry, health, recreation, energy, urban resources, and ecosystems), what is the geographic coverage, how do methodologies differ, what are the gaps and challenges, and a sense of the impacts at the U.S. national level. A new generation of impact studies, including the USEPA’s ongoing Climate Impacts Risk Assessment (CIRA) project; the new IPCC AR5 Working Group II report; the US National Climate Assessment; and the “Risky Business” effort led by the Next Generation Foundation, provide the motivation for this review. These effects, taken together, have advanced the state of US economic impact assessment work along two critical frontiers, both of which support benefit-cost analyses of climate change: assessment of the risk and economic consequences of extreme climatic events; and assessment of ecosystem effects. Yet, the latest work also highlights gaps in what needs to be comprehensive sectoral coverage; more complete incorporation of adaptation opportunities in impact assessment; and critical cross- and multi-sectoral effects that remain poorly understood. 2. Improving the Practice of Economic Analysis of Climate Change Adaptation, Jia Li* ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Michael Mullan, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; Jennifer Helgeson, The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and London School of Economics and Political Science 14 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier The development of national and sectoral climate change adaptation strategies is burgeoning in the US and elsewhere in response to damages from extreme events and projected future risks from climate change. Increasingly, decision makers are requesting information on the economic damages of climate change as well as costs, benefits, and tradeoffs of alternative actions to inform climate adaptation decisions. This paper provides a practical view of the applications of economic analysis to aid climate change adaptation decision making, with a focus on benefit-cost analysis (BCA). We review the recent developments and applications of BCA with implications for climate risk management and adaptation decision making, both in the US and other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. We found that BCA is still in early stages of development for evaluating adaptation decisions, and to date is mostly being applied to investment project-based appraisals. Moreover, the best practices of economic analysis are not fully reflected in the BCAs of climate adaptation-relevant decisions. The diversity of adaptation measures and decision-making contexts suggest that evaluation of adaptation measures may require multiple analytical methods. The economic tools and information would need to be transparent, accessible, and match with the decision contexts to be effective in enhancing decision making. Based on the current evidence, a set of analytical considerations is proposed for improving economic analysis of climate adaptation that includes the need to better address uncertainty and to understand the cross-sector and general equilibrium effects of sectoral and national adaptation policy. 3. Rationales for a “Dashboard” Approach to Inform Climate Change Assessment, Michael Toman* ([email protected]), World Bank Three interrelated challenges are identified for using cost-benefit analysis to evaluate climate change risks and responses. Each challenge stems in part from the characteristics of climate change risks as involving potentially large and irreversible as well as highly uncertain impacts. First, many critics of economic analysis disagree with its underlying behavioral assumptions and its focus on an economic summary statistic. The second challenge relates to how society evaluates moral aspects of climate change risks and responses, in particular the implications for intergenerational equity. Third, climate change is subject to a large degree of Knightian uncertainty, with implications for how individuals perceive and evaluate climate change risks. Addressing these challenges requires retaining a strong focus on assessing the potential costs of climate change and the potential benefits of policy responses, but it also calls for providing several different types of information to decision makers – a “dashboard” approach. 4. Incorporating Benefit-Cost Analysis into Other Decision-Making Frameworks, Robert Lempert* ([email protected]), RAND Corporation Benefit cost analysis (BCA) aims to help people make better decisions. But BCA does not always serve this role as well as intended. In particular, BCA's aim of aggregating all attributes of concern to decision makers into a single, best-estimate metric can conflict with the differing world views and values that may be an inherent characteristics of many climate-related decisions. This paper argues that the new approaches exist that can help reduce the tension between the benefits of providing useful, scientifically-based information to decision makers and the costs of aggregating uncertainty and differing values into single best-estimates. Enabled by new information technology, these approaches can summarize decision-relevant information in new ways. Viewed in this light, many limitations on BCA lie not in the approach itself, but the way it is used. In particular we will argue that the problem lies in a process that begins by first assigning agreed-upon values to all the relevant inputs and then using BCA to rank the desirability of alternative decision options. In contrast, BCA can be used as part of a process that begins by acknowledging a wide range of ethical and epistemological views, examines which combinations of views are most important in affecting the ranking among proposed decision options, and uses this information to identify and seek consensus on actions that are robust over a wide range of such views. 15 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Session 3 - Thursday, March 19, 2:00 - 3:30 A.3: Skills for the Next Generation: A Conversation between Senior Government Economists and Public Policy School Leaders (Marvin 309) Chair: David Weimer ([email protected]), University of Wisconsin-Madison Panelists to Include: 1. Sherry Glied ([email protected]), Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University 2. Kathryn Newcomer ([email protected]), Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington University 3. Sarah Stafford ([email protected]), Jefferson Program in Public Policy, College of William and Mary 4. Amber Jessup ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 5. Al McGartland ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 6. Clark Nardinelli ([email protected]), U.S. Food and Drug Administration 7. Jack Wells ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Transportation - retired As the baby boomers head towards retirement, Federal agencies are faced with the difficult task of replacing experienced economists with recent graduates of public policy schools and other programs. This panel will address the skills related to benefit-cost analysis that are needed by different agencies and how the leaders of several public policy schools are responding to these challenges. B.3: Assessing Benefits for Policies that Reduce Health Risks (Marvin 307) Chair: Thomas J. Kniesner ([email protected]), Claremont Graduate University Presentations: 1. Believe Only Half of What You See: The Role of Preference Heterogeneity in Contingent Valuation, Daniel Herrera* ([email protected]), Toulouse School of Economics; James K. Hammitt, Harvard University The paper shows, under an expected-utility framework, the exact theoretical relationship between willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce small mortality risks, risk reduction, baseline risk, and income. We propose a scope-revealing value of statistical life (SR-VSL) that accounts for any lack of scope sensitivity. Using a French stated-preference survey fielded to a large, nationally 16 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier representative internet panel, we explore by how much, and why, respondents depart from the expected utility predictions. We find that only 40% of our respondents' behave as predicted by expected-utility theory. High concern for environmental risks to health, low education, and less time spent completing the survey are good predictors of deviant answers. Our preferred value of statistical life estimates range from 2.2 to 3.4 million euros for adults, and over 6 million euros for children. No differences are found for disease-specific WTP, particularly, we find no evidence of a premium for cancer. 2. Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reduction in Chinese Cities, Sandra Hoffmann* ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Agriculture; Alan Krupnick, Resources for the Future; Ping Qin, Peking University Willingness to pay for contemporaneous and future mortality risk reductions is estimated for residents of Shanghai, Jiujiang and Nanning, China using a stated preference survey. An innovative computerized payment card elicitation vehicle is used that allows analysis of the impact of anchoring on willingness to pay (WTP). Results are compared to those from administration of a dichotomous choice version of the survey in China and in several other countries. The overall VSL for a contemporaneous reduction in annual mortality risk reduction of 5 in 10,000 is about 1.47 million yuan ($430,000 U.S.). WTP as a percentage of household income is similar to that in other countries. Tradeoffs between current and future risk reductions are far less than in other countries (i.e., closer to one). We find some evidence of a “senior discount” and income elasticities in the 0.2 to 0. 25 range. Results for the “payment screen” version of the survey pass the external scope test, while those of a previous dichotomous choice version do not. WTP estimates are higher in the dichotomous choice than the “payment screen” version of the survey. We find evidence of statistically significant, but numerically small, anchoring effects in the payment screen version. The computerized payment (or payment screen) allows random assignment of the initial cursor point and tracking of cursor movements by respondents. This allows us to create quantitative measures of starting point bias, a concern raised with conventional payment card instruments. More non-movers were observed in the study than would be expected with completely random behavior, and we find some evidence of starting point bias influencing WTP. But the effect is small. We found sizable percentages of respondents choosing round numbers (such as 100 and 1,000). To counter this tendency payment cards should be constructed without round numbers. 3. Valuing Reductions in Risks of Fatal Illness: Implications of Recent Research, Lisa A. Robinson* ([email protected]) and James K. Hammitt, Harvard Center for Risk Analysis The value of mortality risk reductions, conventionally expressed as the value per statistical life (VSL), is an important determinant of the net benefits of many government policies. As a result, regulatory agencies and researchers have devoted substantial attention to identifying the values to be used. Historically, the values applied by U.S. regulators have been based on studies of fatal injuries, raising questions about whether different values might be appropriate for risks associated with fatal illness. Our review suggests that, despite the substantial expansion of the research base in recent years, few U.S. studies of illness-related risks meet quality criteria for use in regulatory analysis. Those that do yield values that are similar to the values for injury-related risks. Given this result, combining the findings of these few studies with the findings of the more robust literature on injuryrelated risks appears to provide a reasonable range of estimates for application in regulatory analysis. Although the studies we identify differ from those that underlie the values currently used by Federal agencies, the resulting estimates are remarkably similar, suggesting that there is substantial consensus emerging on the values applicable to the general U.S. population. 17 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 4. The Role of Publication Selection Bias in Estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life, W. Kip Viscusi* ([email protected]), Vanderbilt University Meta-regression estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) controlling for publication selection bias often yield bias-corrected estimates of VSL that are substantially below the mean VSL estimates. Labor market studies using the more recent Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) data are subject to less measurement error and also yield higher bias-corrected estimates than do studies based on earlier fatality rate measures. These results are borne out by the findings for a large sample of all VSL estimates based on labor market studies using CFOI data and for four metaanalysis data sets consisting of the authors’ best estimates of VSL. The confidence intervals of the publication bias-corrected estimates of VSL based on the CFOI data include the values that are currently used by government agencies, which are in line with the most precisely estimated values in the literature. C.3: Development and Miscellaneous Regulatory Issues (Marvin 308) Chair: Tony Homan ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Transportation Presentations: 1. Integration Investment Appraisal of Critical for Post-Conflict Development Investment: Milk Processing Plant, Ethiopia, Glenn P. Jenkins* ([email protected]), Queen’s University; Mikhail Miklyaev, Cambridge Resources International In recent years the Somali region of Ethiopia has been affected by the political unrest in Federal Republic of Somalia. As a consequence the level of private investment in the region has been very low. After some degree of political stabilization in Somalia, the post-conflict development in the Somali Region of Ethiopia has begun. This study is a cost benefit analysis of a critical private investment in the milk value chain for dairy production in the region. The investment is in the construction of the first milk processing plant in the region. The plant will process both cows’ and camels’ milk and will be the first plant in Ethiopia processing camels’ milk. The pasteurized milk will mainly target consumers in the Somali Region, with some output delivered to Addis Ababa. In addition approximately 40% of pasteurized camel’s milk will target the Somalia export market and will be shipped using refrigerator trucks. Pastoralists in Somalia culturally prefer camel’s milk to any other, and the limited supply of this milk has resulted in high prices. These prices will generate some early high private returns required to compensate for the risk associated with a first-mover investment in an unstable environment. Recognizing the importance of the success of such investments for the sustainable development of the cross-border regions, the United States Agency for International Development has decided to support the private entrepreneur with limited grand and technical assistance. It is also expected the lowering of the price over time as the supply of milk products increases may generate consumer surplus. In addition access to pasteurized milk that has longer shelf life than the raw milk alternative and the living preferences for the consumption of milk throughout the day imply significant positive anticipated health impacts. The study primarily focuses on the estimation of financial and economic returns of the investment and stakeholder analysis of the value chain intervention. 2. Efficient Microlending without Joint Liability, Can Sever* ([email protected]), University of Maryland; Ahmet Altinok, Boğaziçi University 18 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Peer-group mechanisms have been widely used by micro-credit institutions to minimize default risk. However, there are costs associated with establishing and maintaining liability groups. In the case when output is fully observable, we propose a dynamic individual lending mechanism. Assuming that risky borrowers discount the future costs and benefits relatively higher, our mechanism performs equally well in repayment rates, distinguishes safe and risky borrowers through differentiated interest rates and payment schedules. Our mechanism is able to eliminate adverse selection problem, and reaches the first best outcome. We also identify welfare maximizing payment schedules. Individual lending further saves from internal costs of group formation, hence our mechanism achieves a net welfare-superior outcome in case of costly joint liability schemes, and relaxing the group requirement broadens the fractions of society into which microfinance institutions can penetrate. We also introduce history dependent success probabilities, and show existence of efficient individual contracts in that environment. Finally, when outputs are private information, we propose a refinancing scheme in order to give incentive to the borrowers to tell the truth about outputs. 3. The Impact of Past Landscapes Memory on Land Holders’ Willingness to Participate in Payments Policy Instrument in Highlands of the Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Befikadu Alemayehu Legesse* ([email protected]) and Frank Wätzold, Brandenburg University of Technology The Blue Nile Basin is harshly endangered due to natural degradation and economic activities, hence, it is worthwhile to implement alternative policy instrument. In this regard, payment schemes become a prominent policy instrument to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services worldwide. In developing countries, payments schemes are often referred to as payments for ecosystem services (PES) and in developed countries they are widespread in the context of agricultural policy as agrienvironment schemes. Participation in PES intervention is voluntary, which raises the question of what factors affect land owners to participate in PES interventions. Identifying influencing factors may help to predict participation rates ex ante, to predict spatial allocation if factors are spatially clustered, and to target efforts to increase participation at specific groups. This study aims to analyze factors affecting landholders’ willingness-to-participate in a PES intervention. Besides, this study investigates the impact of past landscape memory on land holders’ willingness-to-participate in a PES scheme so as to provide possible policy implications. For this study, demographic, socioeconomic and institutional data was collected from primary and secondary sources of information. The primary data was collected from sampled farmers through structured questioner. We employed multistage probability sampling procedure in order to select the respondents. A total of 301 upstream respondents were interviewed by well experienced enumerators along close supervision. In addition, data also collected from group discussions. D.3: The Valuation of Ecological Goods and Services in Support of Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Ann Cavlovic ([email protected]), Environment Canada Discussant: Randall Lutter ([email protected]), University of Virginia and Resources for the Future Presentations: 1. Environmental Benefit Transfer for Decision-Making, Jean-Michel Larivière* ([email protected]), Environment Canada 19 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Monetizing the value of the environmental impacts associated with governmental policies or development projects is increasingly becoming a requirement for benefit-cost analysis. However, constraints around timelines, funding, or analytical resources may prevent detailed primary research on these impacts from being undertaken. As such, the valuation of environmental impacts may be imprecise or reduced to qualitative statements. When facing such limitations, transferring values from a previous study to a similar analytical context (benefit transfer) becomes a cost-effective approach to generate defensible estimates of environmental values to inform decision-making. However, practitioners would still need to spend significant time searching the literature to find appropriate studies to transfer values from. The Environmental Valuation Reference Inventory (EVRI) was developed in the late 1990s by Environment Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a cost-effective tool to help analysts apply benefit transfer techniques via better access to valuation studies. As the world’s largest online searchable storehouse of environmental valuation studies, EVRI facilitates the literature review process by providing summaries (“captures”) of the key variables contained within each of these studies, e.g. study location, valuation technique, survey instrument, type of environmental asset, etc. This presentation will highlight how EVRI can support the work of benefit-cost analysis practitioners and illustrate how it has been used in Canada. 2. Improving the Valuation of Water Quality, William Wheeler* ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency For environmental quality improvements, particularly those involving air pollution controls, major investments have been made in data collection and modeling methods. As a result, decisionmakers have well-developed tools available to inform their understanding of air pollution policies. America’s water resources are also at risk of degradation from pollutants such as nutrients, sediment, pathogens, and toxins; however, the ability to estimate the benefits of water quality improvements has lagged behind analogous work for air quality. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Policy, Office of Research and Development, and Office of Water have formed a collaborative team of economists, ecologists and water quality modelers to develop a national water quality benefits modeling framework to support greatly improved quantification of the economic benefits of improved water quality. This effort represents a significant investment of resources. A focus will be on expanding the scope of benefits estimates beyond freshwater lakes and rivers (which have been the primary target of the majority of existing valuation studies) to estuaries, coastal areas, freshwater small streams, and the Great Lakes. Another focus will be on expanding the range of benefits that can be considered; for example, there is a dearth of studies valuing recreational swimming in comparison to those valuing recreational fishing. This presentation will describe EPA’s effort in more detail, including outreach, results so far, and future tasks. 3. Measuring Ecosystem Service Benefits for Benefit-Cost Analysis, Kimberly Rollins* ([email protected]), University of Nevada, Reno and Environment Canada Estimating changes in benefits can be challenging in cases where a policy change in an affected ecosystem could change the probability of crossing an irreversible ecological threshold from one dynamic steady state system to another steady state system, which is less desirable for society. System dynamics within each state may result in predictable variations in ecosystem goods and services over time, but a shift between states can lead to a very different set of flows of goods and services. In this case, a primary focus is on how the policy change affects the probability of an irreversible transition across the threshold between states. There is no economic concept that is directly comparable to an ecological threshold. Indeed, the point at which changes in costs and benefits from ecosystem disturbance would indicate a change in economic decision-making is likely to occur before an ecological threshold is reached. Practical examples of such situations have arisen in previous cases where policy changes have affected (1) the likelihood of introduction and diffusion of invasive exotic species, such with as Bromus annual grasses on rangelands in the 20 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier intermountain West; and (2) the probability of catastrophic fires, through fuel reduction and restoration treatments in forests where ecosystem dynamics have been disturbed by heavy fuel accumulations from decades of over-suppression of fire. This presentation will consider decisions that can alter costs and benefits through altering the probability of crossing irreversible ecological thresholds, using arid rangeland ecosystems and forested systems as examples. We demonstrate how models that incorporate economics and ecological dynamics can be designed and repeatedly used when benefits measures are needed for different contexts in large landscape-level systems. We argue that close collaboration with system ecologists is necessary in order to design models that produce reliable benefits measures. E.3: Climate Policy Benefits Issues (Marvin 310) Chair: Richard Belzer ([email protected]), Regulatory Checkbook Presentations: 1. Examining the Energy Efficiency Gap in EPA's Benefit-Cost Analysis of Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Regulations, Gloria Helfand* ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Reid Dorsey-Palmateer, University of Michigan Recent federal regulations require new light-duty vehicles to have lower greenhouse gas emissions and better fuel economy. This paper presents the reasoning used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its benefit-cost analysis of the standards. According to EPA, many available technologies could achieve these goals without affecting other vehicle qualities, and fuel savings would pay for the increased technology costs with short payback periods. This lack of market adoption of cost-effective energy-saving technologies has been termed the energy efficiency gap or energy efficiency paradox. It suggests either that there are additional costs, such as changes in vehicle qualities, not considered in cost estimates, or that markets for energy-saving technologies are not achieving all cost-effective savings. EPA argued that, even if consumers do not accurately consider expected future fuel savings when buying new vehicles, consumers are projected to receive those savings; the latter measure should reflect the impacts of the rule on fuel expenditures. On the cost side, without evidence of adverse effects on other vehicle characteristics, EPA argued that its measure of technology costs accounts for or overestimates the compensating variation associated with the costs of meeting the goals and are therefore a reasonable measure of social costs. 2. Loaded DICE: Refining the Meta-analysis Approach to Calibrating Climate Damage Functions, Peter Howard* ([email protected]), NYU School of Law; Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg Climate change is one of the preeminent policy issues of our day, and the social cost of carbon (SCC) is one of the foremost tools for determining the socially optimal policy response. The SCC is estimated using Integrated Assessment Models, of which Nordhaus’ DICE is the first and one of the best respected. While accuracy at each of the steps of these climate-economic models is necessary to precisely estimate the SCC, calibrating the climate damage function, which translate a temperature change into a percentage change in GDP, correctly is critical. Calibration of the damage function determines which climate damages are included and excluded from the cost of carbon. Traditionally, Nordhaus calibrated the DICE damage function using a global damage estimate calculated by aggregating a series of region-sector specific damage estimates. However, in his latest version, Nordhaus moved to calibrating the DICE damage function using a meta-analysis at the global scale. This paper critiques this meta-analysis approach on several grounds, and re-estimates the DICE-2013 damage function using up-to-date techniques to more accurately reflect climate 21 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier damages and the uncertainty underlying them. The effect of this updated damage function on the resulting SCC estimate is determined. This paper improves an important economic model of climate damages by ensuring that the estimating of its damage function meets the currents standards for meta-analysis. First, I improve the data in the underlying study by including additional estimates and correcting previous estimates. Second, I improve the econometric specification by including key control variables currently omitted. Third, I employ up-to-date meta-analysis techniques. Fourth, I conduct a sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of my results. Last, after estimating a new damage function and the resulting SCC, I conclude with a critique of meta-analysis at the global scale. 3. Think Global, Benefit Local: How the United States Benefits from Calculating the Global Costs of Its Carbon Emissions, Jason Schwartz* ([email protected]) and Peter Howard, NYU School of Law The massive benefits to the US from global greenhouse gas emission reductions provide a powerful incentive for the US to strategize ways to encourage a global response to climate change. One prudent strategy is for the US to continue calculating the global costs of its own greenhouse gas emissions, and to use that value to set economically efficient policies. Theories and experiments on negotiation strategy suggest that such efforts could successfully stimulate cooperative international action. The Obama Administration has adopted a global calculation of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) as part of its climate negotiation strategy. Charged by the US Constitution with managing foreign affairs and coordinating executive branch activities, President Obama deserves political and judicial deference on his choice to calculate the global benefits of US climate regulations. Binding legal obligations further counsel in favor of the US using a global SCC value. In short, to safeguard its own national interests and maximize benefits locally, the US should continue to think globally. This paper provides an extensive discussion of the legal and economic argument for using a global SCC. First, we calculate the benefits that the US already has and will receive from foreign countries taking action on climate change. By demonstrating that US citizens benefit from foreign emission reductions, we argue that the US should work to continue and expand these benefits using various tools, specifically a global SCC. Second, we review economic models of strategic behavior. These models suggest that using the global SCC value in US policy could help induce international cooperation on climate change. Finally, we explore the legal authority (as well as some requirements) to use the global SCC in analyzing and setting US policy. 4. Estimating the Social Benefits of a State-Wide Carbon Tax: A Case Study in Washington State, Alison Saperstein* ([email protected]), Andrew Martin and Kate Delavan* ([email protected]), University of Washington Proponents of state government legislation to restrict greenhouse gas emissions claim that such policies at the state level could encourage and inform future national legislation to mitigate global climate change. Given the uncertainty of that political outcome, we asked, what local economic benefits can we expect from a state-wide carbon tax? As a case study, we estimate the social benefit of a proposed policy for a revenue-neutral tax on carbon in the state of Washington, developed by Carbon Washington. The proposed legislation could become a ballot initiative in 2016 and includes a $25 per metric ton tax on carbon and three additional, off-setting tax reforms: (1) a reduction in sales tax, (2) a tax rebate to low income households, and (3) elimination of the state B & O tax for manufacturers. We estimate the potential impacts of this policy in carbon-related markets and associated secondary markets. We also estimate the non-market value of the resulting reduction in greenhouse gases and other emissions and the local willingness to pay to contribute to 22 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier a solution to the global problem of climate change. We discuss future research needed in order for analysts to more accurately evaluate state government decisions of this nature. Session 4 - Thursday, March 19, 3:45 - 5:15 A.4: Estimating the Benefits of Policies that Address Addictive Goods (Marvin 309) Chair: Lisa A. Robinson ([email protected]), Harvard Center for Risk Analysis Panelists to Include: 1. David Cutler ([email protected]), Harvard University 2. Sherry Glied ([email protected]), New York University 3. James K. Hammitt ([email protected]), Harvard University 4. Donald Kenkel ([email protected]), Cornell University It is unusual to find benefit-cost analysis featured both in Doonesbury and on the front page of the New York Times. Yet that is what happened with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) approach for estimating the benefits of tobacco regulations. The core question is whether and how to account for the “pleasures” of tobacco use; i.e., the losses in consumer surplus that accrue when government policy curtails or discourages behavior that individuals prefer. Typically, we assume that individuals’ preferences are revealed by their behavior and respect these preferences. If an individual understands the likelihood of addiction, the associated health risks, and the difficulty of quitting, yet continues to smoke, presumably the utility associated with smoking outweighs the value of the related health risks. However, an individual’s behavior may diverge from his or her “true” preferences due to self-control problems, misperception of risks, present bias, misforecasting of future consequences and other factors. The underlying issues are profound and raise several questions related to how we assess the benefits of numerous policies that correct “individual failures” in addition to or instead of market failures. When might it be appropriate to move away from reliance on revealed preferences? Whenever addiction is involved? What about other cases where misunderstanding or decision-making anomalies affect behavior? What would then be the basis for valuing policy outcomes? This symposia will bring together a group of experts to discuss specific approaches for estimating benefits in the context of tobacco control, who will also discuss general concepts and the broader policy relevance of the approaches. B.4: Benefits, Costs and Labor Markets (Marvin 307) Chair: Joseph Cordes ([email protected]), The George Washington University Presentations: 1. Public Policy-Induced Changes in Employment: Valuation Issues for Benefit-Cost Analysis, David Weimer* ([email protected]) and Robert Haveman, University of Wisconsin-Madison 23 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier We explore the economic welfare effects of direct and indirect government-induced changes in employment under varying market conditions. We begin with a discussion of those policy-induced employment changes that seamlessly reshuffle workers among jobs in an efficient (i.e., fullemployment, full-information) economy; generally such changes create few, if any, net changes in economic welfare not captured in changes in wage bills. We then turn to the effects of policy-induced employment changes in economies with two market distortions: 1) involuntary unemployment during periods of deficient aggregate demand for labor resulting from inflexible wages set by law or custom, and 2) illiquidity resulting from imperfect capital markets that prevent people from borrowing against future earnings. Induced employment changes in these circumstances impose real net social costs or generate real net social benefits beyond changes in the wage bill. We also assess the likely magnitude of the social opportunity cost of labor in the case of involuntary unemployment and imperfect liquidity, and address how the welfare effects of such employment changes should be valued. Based on currently available empirical research, we develop estimates of the opportunity gains or costs of hiring or releasing an employee during periods of high unemployment with and without other market distortions. In contrast to conventional benefit-cost analysis practice, which treats releasing workers as having a negative opportunity cost, we estimate an opportunity cost for firing that is positive and equal to about 45 percent of pre-firing compensation, primarily because of the “scarring effect” of unemployment. Also in contrast to conventional practice, we estimate an opportunity cost for hiring an unemployed worker that is less than the worker’s opportunity cost of time. 2. Income Growth, Inequality and Happiness, Richard Zerbe* ([email protected]), University of Washington Per capita real income has increased in Europe and in the World from about the year 1000. The great increase has occurred since about 1815, in not only the West but in the World. We ask first, does this increase also increase happiness? If so why? Since about 1976, after a substantial period of decline, the income share of the top 1% especially but also the top 10% has increased substantially in the US and in much of Europe and also in Canada and Australia. Nevertheless the real income of the bottom part of the income distribution has made absolute gains, while losing relatively. Why is this, and what has this done to happiness? This paper proposes answers or at least suggested answers to these questions. 3. The Social and Economic Effects of Wage Violations: Estimates for California and New York, Kelly Haverstick* ([email protected]), Calvin Franz, Tess Forsell and Lou Nadeau, Eastern Research Group This project estimated compliance with labor laws and the costs of non-compliance. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets national standards for a minimum hourly wage, maximum hours worked per week at the regular rate of pay, and premium pay if the weekly standard is exceeded (overtime pay). State governments can implement labor laws that provide higher wage floors, more restrictive overtime laws, or stricter exemption requirements. Both California and New York have enacted stricter rules. Accounting for variation in state labor law adds to the complexity of evaluating compliance with labor laws. The study focused on minimum wage and overtime pay violations in California and New York. Using two large nationally representative datasets, the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the first step in estimating the costs and benefits of non-compliance was to evaluate which workers are covered by these labor laws. Then lost wages to workers were estimated which is the primary cost. Using the CPS, an estimated $22.5 million in wages were lost by workers in California and $10.2 million in wages were lost by workers in New York in 2011 due to minimum wage violations. However, failure to comply with the FLSA and state labor laws has implications beyond the dollar amount of unpaid wages. Additional costs were estimated including government impacts of lower tax revenue (due to lower employment and income tax payments by employees) and higher expenditures on social 24 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier support programs due to the lack of compliance with the FLSA and state minimum wage laws. Specifically, the analysis included estimates of any change in eligibility and benefits for several state and federal social assistance programs (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) based on the estimated loss in earnings due to minimum wage violations. 4. Social Enterprises and the Disadvantaged: The Costs and Benefits of Stabilizing Lives through Transitional Employment, Dana Rotz* ([email protected]) and Nan Maxwell, Mathematica Policy Research This research examined participant experiences in and operations of six social enterprises. Social enterprises were structured to be financially viable businesses that intentionally employ four groups of individuals facing severe employment barriers (those with mental health disabilities, formerly homeless individuals, parolees and ex-offenders, and young adults who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market) as a means to increase these workers’ economic selfsufficiency. Our research collected both participant- and organization-level data with the ultimate goal of performing a cost-benefit analysis of (1) developing a social enterprise and (2) transforming an existing profit-driven business into a social enterprise. Our pre-post analyses drew information from social enterprise workers in all six social enterprises and our quasi-experimentally designed (QED) study drew information from a single, case-study social enterprise. Across all enterprises, benefits were measured using (1) organization balance sheets (revenues), (2) fixed-effects analysis analyzing changes in outcomes for social enterprise employees after one year in five domains: employment, income (self-sufficiency), housing, criminal activity, and health, and (3) a difference-indifferences analysis in the QED as a sensitivity analysis in each of the five domains. Cost data were drawn from the organizations’ balance sheets. We estimated that social enterprise employment was associated with a return on investment of 131 percent across all social enterprises and 41 percent for the case study enterprise. These returns are largely driven by gains to taxpayers from lower costs of housing employees (who move out of homelessness) and reduced rates of recidivism of employees. Additionally, we found social returns to converting profit-driven businesses into social enterprises in excess of 100 percent. C.4: Benefit-Cost Practices and Discounting Issues (Marvin 308) Chair: Jack Knetsch ([email protected]), Simon Fraser University Presentations: 1. Kaldor, Hicks, and Discounting, Daniel Wilmoth* ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Time preference discounting and opportunity cost discounting are alternatives that have each aroused ardent support among economists. The extensive analyses developed for the discounting debate have typically assessed these options by exploring their implications for a representative consumer. In practice, the impacts of government policies vary across consumers, with some bearing costs and others enjoying benefits. When impacts are heterogeneous, policies are typically assessed using some version of the criterion introduced by Kaldor, under which a policy is deemed desirable if productivity improvements would allow winners to benefit even if losers were compensated at their expense. Because the analysis of costs and benefits is used to evaluate satisfaction of that criterion, the relationship between discounting and that criterion is a fundamental determinant of the appropriate discounting scheme. I argue that the criterion is ambiguous when impacts span multiple periods. Two methods for implementing the criterion are considered, and each method is shown to correspond to one of the two popular discounting schemes. I argue that only one of the methods succeeds in identifying policies that improve productivity. That method 25 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier corresponds to opportunity cost discounting, and opportunity cost discounting should therefore be used to evaluate government policies. 2. The Social Discount in Developing Countries, Missaka Warusawitharana* ([email protected]), Federal Reserve Board The social discount rate is the interest rate used to evaluate infrastructure and other public projects. As seen from the discussion on the Stern report on climate change (see Stern, 2007, and Nordhaus, 2007), differences in the social discount rate can have substantial implications for evaluating the costs and benefits of public projects. This note proposes a heuristic approach to deriving the social discount rate for developing countries based on the sovereign borrowing rate. This note argues for using real sovereign borrowing rates as the social discount rate for evaluating public projects in developing countries. Compared to current practice, such an approach would result in a lower discount rate than currently applied, potentially leading to greater public infrastructure investments in developing countries. If carried out wisely, such investments may help boost living standards for many people in these countries. 3. Does Benefit-Cost Analysis Solve the Right Problem?, Timothy Brennan* ([email protected]), University of Maryland, Baltimore County Benefit cost analysis (BCA) is the standard tool for assessing whether a public policy is worth doing. A general if not uniform justification for BCA is that it indicates when the winners from the implementation of a public policy could, in principle, compensate the losers. A second defense of BCA as a rule is that on average everyone will eventually gain if one implements only regulations with positive net benefits. BCA merits a stronger role to the extent that economic efficiency is a paramount consideration in setting public policies. However, the attraction of BCA goes beyond that. In some respects, BCA is an important regulatory practice because it imposes an impersonal discipline on the regulatory process. The key terms are the related concepts of “impersonal” and “discipline”. “Impersonal” refers to the idea that the net merit of a regulation stands apart from the particular preferences of those with the authority to determine whether a policy is implemented. “Discipline” refers to ensuring that the regulatory process leads to only those outcomes meeting that impersonal standard. BCA can promote interpersonal discipline, but it will fail to do so in contexts where benefit-cost calculations are not necessarily met. Examples include rules nominally instituted to promote competition, redistribute wealth, or promote civil, constitutional or political rights. A key consideration is the burden of proof and who bears it. Informed by recent experience in communications regulation, the analysis will look at whether the Administrative Procedures Act addresses this concern and how “Chevron deference” evolved from giving EPA the authority to define a polluting “source” to allowing agencies to institute regulations based merely on their judgment. The problem facing the regulatory process may be too big for BCA alone to solve. 4. Formality and Informality in Cost-Benefit Analysis, Amy Sinden* ([email protected]), Temple University Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is usually treated as a monolith. In fact, the term can refer to a broad variety of decisionmaking practices, ranging from a qualitative comparison of pros and cons to a highly formalized and technical method grounded in economic theory that monetizes both costs and benefits, discounts to present net value, and locates the point at which the marginal benefits curve crosses the marginal costs curve. This article develops a typology that helps to conceptualize and analyze the multiple varieties of CBA along the formality-informality spectrum. It then uses this typology to analyze the treatment of CBA by the academic community and the three branches of the federal government. In academic and policy circles, the formal end of this spectrum generates far more controversy than the informal end. Additionally, the law (federal environmental statutes and 26 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier federal case law) seems to favor informal over formal varieties of CBA. Nonetheless, the executive branch appears to be moving toward the formal end of the spectrum. Executive Orders and guidance documents direct agencies to conduct a highly formal mode of CBA. And anecdotal evidence suggests that agencies often go out of their way to give their CBAs the trappings of formality, sometimes in ways that lead to irrational results. I argue that 1) failing to distinguish between formal and informal CBA, and the many varieties in between, has led to muddled thinking and to misuses of CBA; and 2) the trend toward formality in the executive branch is a bad development, in part because it can, and often does, lead to what I call “false formality”—a corruption of CBA that can occur when agencies fail to clearly and consistently define where on the formality-informality spectrum a particular CBA falls. D.4: Electricity Sector Optimization (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Anne Smith ([email protected]), NERA Presentations: 1. Analyzing the Costs and Benefits of Microgrids, Brian Morrison* ([email protected]), Nadav Tanners, Claire Santoro, and Christopher Smith, Industrial Economics, Incorporated In 2014, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a $17 billion strategy to transform the State of New York’s infrastructure, enhancing its ability to withstand severe weather events. An important element of the strategy is developing a more resilient energy system. This includes soliciting proposals to fund the development of microgrids in selected communities throughout the state. Microgrids are electric distribution systems that can operate when connected to the larger grid, but can also disconnect from it and operate independently during an emergency. This capability enables them to support the delivery of critical services – i.e., services that are essential for public safety and health – when the conventional grid is down. The anticipated benefits of each microgrid will be an important consideration in evaluating community proposals for state funding. This presentation describes a model developed to assist the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) in evaluating these benefits, as well as each project’s costs. The model analyzes a broad range of costs and benefits, enabling NYSERDA to identify investments that are likely to be cost-effective from a social welfare perspective. A key consideration in evaluating the benefits of a microgrid is the frequency of major power outages, which can be difficult to predict. Concern that climate change is likely to increase the frequency of such outages is high in New York, which suffered nine presidentially declared weather disasters, including Hurricane Sandy, from 2010 through 2013. To address this concern, the model relies on breakeven analysis to determine how often lengthy outages would need to occur for the benefits of a microgrid to equal its costs. The results can be compared with historical data on the frequency of major outages to determine whether development of a microgrid is likely to be cost-effective. 2. An Economic Analysis of Power Generation Options for Nigeria, Ijeoma L. Eziyi* ([email protected]) and Omotola M. Awojobi, Eastern Mediterranean University Over the past two decades, electricity prices have been highly subsidized for consumers in Nigeria. Because of this, investment in the power sector has not been competitive, leaving the economy with an energy deficient power sector. Nigeria’s power crisis has been further compounded by the lack of enabling environment for private investors due to regulated prices, corruption; inflation and high cost of capital. As of December 2013, the country had a total of 8,664MW capacity installed, out of which only 4,842MW was available to meet peak demand. With an estimated peak demand for electricity in the country of about 11,230MW, there is huge investment gap in the power sector which could 27 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier generate substantial welfare advantage for consumers, and more surplus to the producers and other stakeholders in the system. This study estimates the cost of power shortages and further examines the various power generation options available to Nigeria. Using cost-benefit analysis approach, we are able to show the marginal benefits of implementing policies that promotes new investments in the power sector. We estimate the net economic benefits of various options that can be explored by the power utility in Nigeria. This analysis takes into consideration the high level dependence of consumers on self-generation in the country. Our findings shows that the country could have a net economic resource savings (discounted) ranging between US$4.9billion and US$29 billion over a study period of 25 years. The simple benefits estimated under this study is equivalent to the cost savings from self-generation. Perhaps, these benefits would be much higher if there were no captive generators presently to meet the energy needs of consumers. This range in the estimation of net benefits provide substantial evidence to perform a sensitivity analysis on each viable power generation option. Our results are quite sensitive to future prices of fuel. 3. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fuel-Flexibility in Thermal Power Generation, Bahman Kashi* ([email protected]) and Glenn Jenkins, Queen's University This study provides an empirical framework for deterministic and probabilistic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of investment in fuel flexibility in the thermal generation of electricity. Natural gas has become the fuel of choice for new thermal electricity generation plants across the globe. While every country has access to imported or domestic sources of natural gas, instabilities in the price, availability and quality of natural gas have resulted in suboptimal operation of many thermal power plants. This has resulted in an increased interest in investments in fuel-flexible power plants. When needed, such plants can operate on alternative fuels such as the abundantly available, but more expensive, light crude oil. Operators of such power plants can switch to the alternative source when natural gas is not available. Countries can also benefit from such operational flexibility when faced with volatile fuel prices, or when there is a prospect of cheap domestic supply of natural gas in the future. This analysis looks at the trade off between the greater maintenance and capital costs of building the power plants with fuel flexibility and the benefits of lower fuel costs and increased reliability. In addition, it considers the conditions necessary for it to be worthwhile to convert a single fuel generation plant into one that is dual fired. 4. Implications of Technology Availabilty on Clean Power Plan Compliance Costs, Scott Bloomberg* ([email protected]), NERA In this presentation, I will explore the electric sector compliance costs (and other relevant cost measures) associated with the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan based on different assumptions regarding the availability of selected technologies. In particular, I will explore the potential for new nuclear generation to assist in meeting state emission rate requirements. I will also evaluate the impacts associated with different levels and costs of energy efficiency. E.4: Non-Market Recreational Welfare Effects of Changes in the Diversity and Abundance of Species (Marvin 310) Chair: Trudy Ann Cameron ([email protected]), University of Oregon Presentations: 28 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 1. A Combined Revealed/Stated Preference Model for Projecting the Impact of Aquatic Nuisance Species on Recreational Angling in the Great Lakes, Upper Mississippi, and Ohio River Basins, Gregory L. Poe* ([email protected]), Cornell University; Richard C. Ready, Pennsylvania State University / Montana State University; T. Bruce Lauber, N.A. Connelly, R.C Stedman and S. Creamer, Cornell University With the objective of preventing interbasin transfer of Aquatic Nuisance (ANS) or Invasive Species the Great Lake and Mississippi and Ohio River Basins, Congress mandated that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) conduct a Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS) of the benefits and costs of alternative ANS controls, including severing all hydrological connections between the two basins. The estimated investment costs of alternate strategies with differential expected success rates range from negligible to over $18 billion. As part of the GLMRIS project the co-authors conducted a combined revealed preference-stated preference survey to predict how recreational anglers in these basins would respond to potential decreases in recreational catch rates that could occur as a result of ANS transfer. Using a recall survey conducted during March through May 2012, travel cost data for the 2011 fishing season was collected from over 3,500 recreational anglers (response rate = 46%) in MN, IA, MO, WI, IL, IN, KY, MI, OH, WV, PA and NY. A repeated site-choice, three-level, nested-logit model was estimated using the 2011 travel cost data. For each choice occasion, anglers were assumed to choose whether to go fishing (Participation decision), what fishing type to engage in (Fishing Type decision), and where to fish (Fishing Site decision). Overall, the estimated site-choice model is consistent with underlying economic theory. The revealed behavior model was augmented with stated preference (contingent behavior) data by eliciting how anglers would change their behavior in response to decreases in catch rates. The resulting stated preference estimates of participation can be incorporated into the travel cost choice framework to project changes in fishing frequency and consumer surplus with spatially explicit changes in catch rates for seven different types of fishing. 2. The Value of Water Quality to Fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay, Matt Massey* ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Steve Newbold, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency This analysis estimates the value of water quality changes (measured by nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment) to recreational anglers in the Chesapeake Bay. Water quality changes resulting from reductions in pollutant loads are assumed to affect fishermen in two ways. First, water quality indirectly affects fishermen by influencing the abundance of fish and therefore fishermen’s expected catch rates. Second, water quality may directly affect fishermen by influencing the tangible aesthetic qualities of the fishing sites, such as water clarity. These water quality driven changes in species abundance and site characteristics may cause changes in fishermen’s per trip utility, the numbers of trips taken, or both. Using historical data from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service’s Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistic Survey (MRFSS) on recreational fishing trips to and catch rates at sites located on the Chesapeake Bay, we estimate a random utility maximization (RUM) site choice travel cost model. Following Murdock (2006), we estimate a complete set of alternative specific constants (ASC’s) and then in a second stage regress site characteristics such as catch rate and site water quality on the estimated ASC’s. Results indicate that water quality has a significant impact on anglers’ utility per trip and on the number of trips they take per season. Results also suggest that most fishermen care about the total numbers of fish caught although some fishermen care strongly about what types of fish they are catching. In order to capture changes in the number of trips taken 29 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier in response to the water quality changes we link the results of the RUM model to a negative binomial participation model. Results indicate that increased water quality does cause more trips to be taken. 3. Joint Estimation of Revealed and Stated Preference Data from the Alaska Saltwater Sportfishing Economic Survey, John C. Whitehead* ([email protected]), Appalachian State University; Daniel K. Lew, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service One of the major policy issues in fisheries management is the efficient allocation of catch quota across commercial and recreational sectors. The benefit of a reallocation toward one sector is the value of additional catch. The cost of the reallocation is the value forgone in the other sector. Accurate measurement of the value of catch in both sectors is essential for an economically-efficient allocation. In this paper we develop econometric models to jointly estimate revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) models of recreational fishing behavior and preferences using survey data from Alaska. The RP data are from site choice survey questions and the SP data are from a choice experiment. Models using only the RP data are likely to estimate the effect of cost on site selection well but marginal values associated with catch rates may not be reflected well in the benefits of the trip as perceived by anglers. The SP models are likely to estimate the effects of trip characteristics well but provide less attention to the cost variable. The combination and joint estimation of revealed and stated preference data seeks to exploit the contrasting strengths of RP and SP data. We find that there are significant gains in econometric efficiency by combining data sources, and differences between RP and SP willingness to pay estimates are mitigated by joint estimation. The nested logit trick model fails to account for the panel nature of the data and is less preferred to scaled, random parameter and generalized mixed logit models that account for the panel data and scale differences. We find scale differences across data sources in only one candidate model, the error components random parameters logit. While this model outperformed the standard random parameters logit model, willingness to pay estimates do not differ across these two models. 4. The Value to Birders of Species Biodiversity: A Random Utility Model of Site Choice by eBird Participants, Sonja Kolstoe* ([email protected]) and Trudy Ann Cameron, University of Oregon The eBird database is a product of a huge citizen science project at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Members report their birding excursions, including their destinations and the numbers and types of birds they observe on each trip. Based on home address information, we calculate round-trip road distance and travel time and use this information to construct travel cost measures for outings to competing destinations. We focus our analysis on birders in the Pacific Northwest U.S. (Washington and Oregon states). Each possible destination (birding hotspot) can be characterized by a number of alternative measures of expected species diversity abundance in that month by combining the eBird data with additional data from Birdlife International. Travel costs allow us to estimate the marginal utility of other consumption. We allow for heterogeneity in the marginal utility per species in each of four different groups, allowing variously for a time trend and seasonal effects, as well as random variation in key utility parameters. We allow for habit formation and varietyseeking. Inferred total WTP estimates for a birding outing depends upon a number of features of the destination site in addition to species diversity (including ecological region and management regime). The main goal of the research is to quantify the potential effects of land-use changes or climate-changeinduced alterations in species’ ranges on the value of birding opportunities to this population of birders. Session 5 - Friday, March 20, 9:00 - 10:30 30 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier A.5: Financial Benefits of Remediation (Marvin 309) Chair: Heidi King ([email protected]), GE Capital Presentations: 1. The Value of Brownfield Remediation, Lala Ma* ([email protected]), University of Kentucky; Kevin Haninger, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Christopher Timmins, Duke University The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Program awards grants to redevelop contaminated lands known as brownfields. This paper estimates cleanup benefits based on a nationally representative sample of brownfields using a variety of quasi-experimental techniques. We advance the existing body of work on two important fronts. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that combines non-public EPA administrative records with high-resolution, high-frequency housing data to estimate the effects of brownfield cleanup across the entire federal Brownfields Program. Next, only under certain conditions can the capitalization of disamenities into local housing markets be given a welfare interpretation. We utilize different sources of variation available in our unique data to estimate cleanup benefits without relying on those assumptions, which makes our estimates particularly useful for cost-benefit analysis. We find increases in property values accompanying cleanup, ranging from 4.9% to 9.3%; for a welfare interpretation that does not rely on the intertemporal stability of the hedonic price function, a double-difference nearest-neighbor matching estimator finds even larger effects of up to 15.6%. Our various specifications lead to the common conclusion that Brownfields Program cleanups yield a positive, statistically significant, but highlylocalized effect on housing prices. 2. The Labor Market Impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling Moratorium, Joseph E. Aldy ([email protected]), Harvard Kennedy School In 2010, the Gulf Coast experienced the largest oil spill, the greatest mobilization of spill response resources, and the first Gulf-wide deepwater drilling moratorium in U.S. history. Taking advantage of the unexpected nature of the spill and drilling moratorium, I estimate the net effects of these events on Gulf Coast employment and wages. Despite predictions of major job losses in Louisiana — resulting from the spill and the drilling moratorium — I find that Louisiana coastal parishes, and oilintensive parishes in particular, experienced a net increase in employment and wages. In contrast, Gulf Coast Florida counties, especially those south of the Panhandle, experienced a decline in employment. Analysis of accommodation industry employment and wage, business establishment count, sales tax, and commercial air arrival data likewise show positive economic activity impacts in the oil-intensive coastal parishes of Louisiana and reduced economic activity along the NonPanhandle Florida Gulf Coast. 3. Welfare Impacts of Labor Market Changes Induced by Regulations, Ann E. Ferris* ([email protected]) and Alex Marten, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The welfare impacts of labor market changes induced by regulations are multi-faceted, include both private and social components, and are difficult to identify and measure empirically. There is an ongoing debate on whether the costs and benefits of labor market changes induced by regulations should be included with welfare measures in benefit-cost analysis (BCA), or analyzed separately as economic impacts. Cass Sunstein has called this a “frontiers question”. Whether included directly or not, the monetized value of these labor market changes may be of value to policy makers when assessing regulatory options. However, there are theoretic disagreements and significant difficulties 31 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier in practice, in terms of monetizing labor market changes, which the available literature has yet to address. This paper first reviews the arguments in the current debate about incorporating the potential welfare impacts of labor market changes in applied BCA of regulations. In addition to the theoretical and political considerations that frame the debate, there is a practical dimension that should also inform the conversation but is often left out of the debate. We examine the techniques brought forth in the empirical literature to monetize the numerous facets of this problem, carefully considering their applicability, data requirements, and uncertainty with regards to analyzing national level regulations. This review provides grounds to inform the debate about the incorporation of labor market impacts in BCA by highlighting the potential information available to practitioners relative to the resources required to develop credible analytic estimates. 4. From Controversy to Consensus: Decommissioning California's Offshore Oil Platforms, Max Henrion*([email protected]), Lumina Decision Systems The 27 oil platforms in California's coastal waters are many decades old and reaching the end of their productive life. The original leases required the platform operators to dismantle and remove them entirely after they cease production. The platforms are massive structures, up to 1200 feet deep. They are now encrusted with marine organisms, providing a rich habitat for economically valuable rock fish. They have become popular with sea lions, recreational human divers, and many other marine life forms. Removal would be costly, likely over a billion dollars, and have substantial environmental impacts, including emissions to air and water, as well as destruction of this habitat. The California Ocean Science Trust (OST) commissioned an interdisciplinary team to provide a comprehensive survey of the relevant scientific, engineering, economic, and legal issues, with a decision analysis of the key decommissioning options. The study had to consider the concerns of a full range of stakeholders, including environmental groups, oil companies, commercial and recreational fishermen, divers, and a range of state and federal agencies. These concerns include the cost of removal, environmental impacts on biological productivity, marine mammals and birds, air and water quality, and the seabed, ocean access, and compliance with the leases. A key insight from the study was that partial removal or "rigs to reefs" option reduced both costs and environmental impacts relative complete removal. Technical contributions included the first quantitative models of fish production and air emissions, and the first probabilistic analysis of decommissioning costs. A key option for partial removal was to cut platforms off at 85 feet below sea level to avoid interfering with shipping. An additional option to sweeten partial removal for environmental advocates was to share the cost savings from partial removal (potentially over $500 million) between the oil companies and an Ocean Conservation Fund. With this addition, almost all stakeholders supported the rigs-to-reefs. The California state legislature passed an enabling law, AB 2503, almost unanimously. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it in September 2010. Decommissioning of the first platforms is expected to start in 2015. B.5: Economics Frontiers and Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 307) Chair: Sandra Hoffmann ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Agriculture Presentations: 1. WTP or WTA: Determining the Appropriate Measure When Preferences Are Reference Dependent, Phumsith Mahasuweerachai* ([email protected]), Khon Kaen University; Jack Knetsch, Simon Fraser University 32 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Many recent studies provide strong evidence that people often value losses substantially more than gains, and to value changes not in terms of final outcomes as assumed in standard theory and common practice, but in terms of changes from reference states. Positive changes may, therefore, often be reductions of losses rather than gains, with WTA measures then more accurately assessing welfare improvements than WTP (with analogous implications for negative changes). It is, therefore, important to have objective means of determining which measure will provide a more accurate assessment in particular cases. One such means of discriminating is presented here, based on observed differences and similarities of positive and negative changes within the domains of gains and of losses. The method is illustrated and tested with the results from an extensive study of Thai farmers’ valuations of changes in river erosion control works. Its applicability is further tested with choices of measure to value other entitlement changes. If further tests provide similar results, this suggested means may offer considerable potential to deal with the likely bias of current assessment practice of seriously understating the value of many losses and reductions of losses. 2. More Accurate Estimation of Program Benefits in a Hedonic Setting, Thomas J. Kniesner* ([email protected]), Claremont Graduate University; Chris Rohlfs, Morgan Stanley; Ryan Sullivan, Naval Postgraduate School; Hedonic estimation involving the marginal willingness to pay for goods’ and services’ attributes is a vital tool for measuring the benefits of public policies that improve safety or environmental, school, or health care quality. Our research extends the hedonic estimation approach to include three important, but generally ignored, aspects of markets for heterogeneous goods or services. Specifically, first we consider that many attributes are endogenous and change in response to exogenous shocks. Second, we consider that heterogeneous goods and services can have substitutes and complements and exogenous shocks to a market of interest may affect the markets for the other products. Third, aggregate quantities supplied may change in response to an exogenous policy induced shock. For all three reasons just mentioned the benefits of an exogenous policy induced shock to one product attribute will be incompletely capitalized into the price of that product, and traditional hedonic estimators will produce biased estimates of policy benefits. The focal point of our research is the presentation of new experimental and quasi-experimental estimators that avoid the just-mentioned biases and are consistent estimators in a general setting. The new estimators are, of course, more demanding in their data requirements and need for exogenous sources of variation than the currently familiar hedonic estimators. A variety of our new estimators are presented for situations where different acceptable sources of data are available. We conclude with an application of one of the improved estimators of the total demand for an attribute to measure the value that military recruits place on funds to be used eventually for their higher education. We find that contributions to an educational spending account are valued at about $0.25 to $0.50 per $1 of benefits and that direct tuition and stipend support are valued at about $0 to $0.10 per $1 of benefits provided. 3. Challenges in BCA from Implementing the Many Concepts of Risk and Uncertainty, Scott Farrow* ([email protected]), University of Maryland, Baltimore County Benefit-cost analyses are often used to inform investments or policy choices about risks. The applied analyst suddenly finds that there are multiple aspects of modeling and quantifying risk. This paper seeks to clarify the several ways in which risk enters typical environmental or health analyses. Among the different aspects of risk requiring different theory and different quantitative methods can include: a) is there a distinction between risk and uncertainty, and if so, how to separate their modeling?, b) the use of probabilistic methods to model statistical distributions of 33 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier inputs and the results distribution of outputs, c) the importance of conditional distributions which may shift risk, d) risk preferences of individuals, including behavioral approaches, such that valuations differ by those preferences, and e) decision rules with uncertainty. This paper synthesizes the issues and identifies currently available empirical tools. 4. A Study in the Use of Game Theory in the Regulatory Process, Jose Davalos* ([email protected]), U.S. Coast Guard Use of game theory, which is focused on countering an adversary intending to do harm, seems as a well – motivated and appropriate fit for security applications. However, the use of game theory is not limited to just security, but can also be a formable application to non-security regulations as well. The use of game theory can prove useful in estimating benefits of regulation, largely by estimating how the regulated industry and other will response to the language of the regulation and the enforcement of the regulation. We have conducted a study that examines the use of game theoretical approaches to develop an assessment of benefits for regulatory analysis of security regulation. The study has resulted in recommended game theory methodologies that can be used to examine regulatory benefits in cases where benefits are not quantitatively measurable. We found that security regulations can be reduced to an extensive form of game with perfect information. We also found that a limited set of action for a would-be adversary can be expressed and compared efficiently in a strategic form. In addition, game theory shifts the question of which regulatory actions have the least burden of proving net benefits under assumed adversary actions to a question of which alternative has the greatest net benefit under assumed adversary resources for any desired action. This presentation discusses the use of game theory to realize the benefits and best alternative when developing and analyzing security related regulations. C.5: Finance Issues (Marvin 308) Chair: Ali Gungor ([email protected]), U.S. Coast Guard Presentations: 1. Accounting for Market Distortions in an Integrated Investment Appraisal Framework, Kemal Bagzibagli* ([email protected]), Eastern Mediterranean University; Glenn P. Jenkins, Queen’s University/Eastern Mediterranean University; Octave Semwaga, Ministry of Finance of Rwanda Public investments are key policy instruments used by governments in pursuing their overall development goals and strategies. Given the limited resources available to an economy, the chosen projects should fit into the overall development strategy, which usually concerns many stakeholder groups. Despite this fact, in practice the appraisal of most investment projects carried out by governments, multilateral financial institutions and consultants have tended to be basically a financial analysis with only a partial, if any, economic evaluation. The stated constraints are largely the time frame in which these appraisals are to be prepared, and the lack of data for carrying out a professionally adequate economic appraisal. This paper reports on an effort in Rwanda that, we believe, has successfully addressed both of these constraints. Our paper first presents the adjustments required to convert the financial values of investment projects into their corresponding economic values in a manner that meets a high standard of professionalism. The paper also describes the comprehensive framework and practical approaches to the estimation of the economic prices and Commodity Specific Conversion Factors (CSCFs) for project inputs and outputs. The paper applies the framework to tradable and non-tradable goods and services in Rwanda, and estimates their CSCFs to be used in the economic appraisal of investment projects in the country. These analytical frameworks have then been used to develop a web based database of CSCFs for 34 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Rwanda,4 containing more than 5,000 tradable commodities, and non-tradable goods and services such as transportation, construction, electricity, and telecommunication. The database provides easy access from anywhere in the world for project appraisal specialists involved in the formulation, evaluation and implementation of projects, and allows them to conduct an up-to-date economic appraisal of investment projects in a professionally satisfactory manner. 2. A Review of and Lessons Learned from Federal Research and Development Facility Capital Budgeting Practices, Vanessa Pena* ([email protected]) and Susanna Howieson ([email protected]), IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute Researchers at the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) conducted various studies on the planning and prioritization processes and evaluation frameworks for Federal research and development (R&D) facilities. This presentation provides an overview of these past studies related to this topic. The analyses included input from interviews with Federal agency senior executives, budget analysts, laboratory directors, and facilities managers, among others across the Federal R&D enterprise to understand the variety of capital budgeting processes across the Federal Government. STPI researchers also performed an extensive literature review of planning and assessment of Federal R&D facilities and reviewed agency planning and programmatic documents, such as agency and laboratory strategic plans and budgets. The studies exposed various challenges and best practices relevant to (1) assessing Federal R&D facility condition, value and overall benefits to the agency and (2) using the outcomes of those assessments to inform capital budgeting prioritization and investment decisions. Based on these findings, STPI researchers propose several strategies to improve agency capital budgeting practices for R&D facilities: (1) encourage interagency benchmarking, data-sharing efforts, and exchange of best practices, such as the use of long-term modeling tools and integrated metrics, (2) standardize Federal facility data and metrics definitions to facilitate peer review, (3) develop strong prioritization frameworks and criteria when metrics are lacking to effectively capture and communicate the R&D facility’s impact on agency missions. The studies indicate that longer-term interagency efforts may be necessary to address these issues and implement the strategies for improving the Federal capital budgeting process for R&D facilities. 3. Identifying a Suitable Control Group Based on Microeconomic Theory: The Case of Escrows in the Subprime Market, Xiaoling Ang* ([email protected]) and Alexei Alexandrov, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau We analyze the effect of a Federal Reserve Board’s subprime mortgage regulation requiring escrows on the availability of mortgage credit. Due to all mortgage originators being affected by the regulation, there is no natural control group for affected markets. We use the assumption of profit maximization to construct a control group. Applying a difference-in-difference strategy to a dataset constructed using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act loan level data and USDA Rural Atlas county level data, we find no statistically or economically significant impact on the loan origination markets across the U.S., despite 202 institutions exiting the subprime mortgage market in over 200 counties. These results, along with other evidence presented in the paper, strongly suggest that consumers were able to switch to similar loans originated by the exiting creditors’ competitors. 4. Escape from the Silos: Stakeholder Analysis, William McCarten* ([email protected]), World Bank - retired This paper proposes to advance the policy-institutional practice frontier by first asking how relatively homogenous groups of stakeholders are currently integrated in benefit-cost work undertaken by international financial institutions (IFIs) for their clients and then by posing and answering normative 35 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier questions about how operational practice can be improved to enhance infrastructure investment outcomes and mitigate the losses of adversely affected groups. The paper asks whether utilizing evaluation shortcuts in the form of “add-ons” and “carve outs” in the interest of operational simplicity will potentially lead to project option ranking reversals or the neglect of key insights that might motivate project design changes to mitigate risk and reduce stakeholder losses. Finally, it asks if there is scope for advancing a multi-IFI consensus on a minimum set of stakeholder categories and analytical conventions, such as a willingness to accept criterion for involuntary resettlements, that would improve the support of IFI client governments, stakeholder advocacy groups, and capital market partners by enhancing political acceptability and reducing project execution risk? Improved support is desired as a potential key to improving infrastructure investment climates. The main tool of analysis will be a review of selected actual projects sponsored by IFIs to catalogue the ways in which stakeholder have been identified and integrated into benefit-cost modules. The author will consult project appraisal documents (PADs), project completion reports and independent evaluation reports produced by affiliated evaluation agencies. These findings will be benchmarked with the methodological guidelines for stakeholder-inclusive appraisal work advocated by experts from selected academic clusters to measure the degree of alignment between lending preparation practice and academic models of best practice. The reemergence of interest in formal cost-benefit analysis of investment projects has responded to an increased emphasis on project-driven impacts on the poor, the quantification of environmental externalities, the identification of differential gender impacts, and the identification of differential behavioral responses from different categories of stakeholders. In the Harberger tradition, stakeholder analysis focuses on a small set of project externalities, while sharply contrasting ideas of stakeholder integration emerge when analysts adopt a sociological or political economy driven frameworks to disaggregate affected groups. Both traditions will be reviewed in benchmarking IFI practice. D.5: Economic Evaluation of Medical Interventions (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Don Kenkel ([email protected]), Cornell University Presentations: 1. Saving Lives with Stem Cell Transplants, Damien Sheehan-Connor* ([email protected]), Wesleyan University; Theodore Bergstrom, University of California Santa Barbara; Rodney Garratt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Blood stem cell transplants can be life saving for some patients, but the chances of finding a matching donor are small unless a large number of potential donors are evaluated. Many nations maintain large registries of potential donors who have offered to donate stem cells if they are the best available match for a patient needing a transplant. An alternative source of stem cells, umbilical cord blood, is stored in banks. Everyone faces a small probability of needing a transplant that will increase their likelihood of survival. The registries and cord blood banks are thus an interesting example of a pure public good with widely dispersed benefits. This paper explores the gains in survival probability that arise from increased registry and bank sizes and uses ``value of statistical life'' methods to estimate benefits and compare them to costs. Our results suggest that for the United States and for the world as a whole, the sum of marginal benefits of an increase in either the adult registry or the cord blood bank exceeds marginal costs. However, marginal benefit-cost ratios for the adult registry are much greater than those for the cord blood banks, which suggests that to the extent that these two sources of life saving compete for public funds it may be preferable to prioritize expansion of the adult registry over cord blood banks. 36 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 2. The Use of Economic Evaluation to Inform Newborn Screening Policy Decisions: The Washington State Experience, Scott D. Grosse* ([email protected]), U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; John D. Thompson and Michael Glass, Washington State Department of Health Context: The use of economic evaluation methods to inform newborn screening (NBS) policy decisions has received little attention. This paper documents the use of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) models to inform policy decisions in Washington State since 2001. The experience of the Washington State Department of Health in developing analyses of expected costs and outcomes can help other political jurisdictions to decide whether to take a similar approach. Methods: Discussions with experts involved in the NBS policy process in Washington State were combined with an analysis of internal reports and spreadsheet files to summarize and discuss BCA models for two disorders: MCAD deficiency and cystic fibrosis completed in 2003 and 2005. Avoided deaths were valued using societal willingness-to-pay estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) of $4 million. The assumptions and findings were compared with subsequently published findings in the peer-reviewed scientific literature to assess the accuracy of the estimates of outcomes. Findings: The Department of Health prepared spreadsheet models demonstrating positive expected net benefit of adding MCAD deficiency and cystic fibrosis to the state NBS panel. The primary benefit in both models was from the expected reduction in infant deaths resulting from early detection and treatment. These models provided the needed information to complete the policy making process. The findings of the models are consistent with other information on the health outcomes and costs of screening for the selected disorders. Conclusions: Public health NBS programs can develop the capacity to project the expected costs and benefits of expansion of NBS panels. The Department of Health has continued to use BCA to inform NBS policies, including a 2013 analysis of screening for severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) that used VSL estimates of $6.1-9.1 million and led to the adding of SCID to the state NBS panel. 3. Retrospective Benefit-Cost Analysis Review of Bar Code Labeling for Human Drug and Biological Products, Nellie Lew* ([email protected]), Clark Nardinelli, and Andreas Schick, U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Elizabeth Ashley, Office of Management and Budget With an objective to reduce the number of medication administration errors that occur in hospitals and other healthcare settings each year, FDA published a final regulation in 2004 that requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to place linear bar codes on certain human drug and biological products. At a minimum, the linear barcode must contain the drug’s National Drug Code (NDC) number, which represents the product’s identifying information. The intent was that bar codes would be part of a system where healthcare professionals would use bar code scanning equipment and software to electronically verify against a patient’s medication regimen that the correct medication is being given to the patient before it is administered. By requiring commercial drug product packages and unit-dose blister packages to carry bar code labels, it was anticipated that the rule would stimulate widespread adoption of bar code medication administration (BCMA) technology among hospitals and other facilities, thereby generating public health benefits in the form of averted medication errors. We use the 2004 prospective regulatory impact analysis as the basis to reassess the costs and benefits of the bar code rule. Employing the most recent data available on actual adoption rates of bar code medication administration technology since 2004 and other key determinants of the costs and benefits, we examine the impacts of the bar code rule since its implementation and identify changes in technology that have occurred. In this retrospective study, 37 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier we also use alternative models of health information technology diffusion to improve estimates of counterfactual scenarios against which we compare the effects of the bar code rule. 4. Benefit-Cost Analysis of Universal Newborn Screening for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID): A Policy Tool for State Health, Yao Ding* ([email protected]), Ruhiyyih Degeberg, Jelili Ojodu, Association of Public Health Laboratories; Scott D. Grosse, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; John D. Thompson, Washington State Department of Health Context: Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) is a genetic disorder that results in profound T-lymphocyte deficiencies. Infants with SCID typically are diagnosed after the onset of recurrent severe infections around 6 months of age. Among infants with SCID who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, 94% of those transplanted within 3.5 months survive, compared to 50-70% for those transplanted later. The T-cell receptor excision circle (TREC) assay using dried blood spots collected for newborn screening (NBS) can identify infants with T-lymphocyte deficiencies, and this screening test has been successfully integrated into more than 20 state NBS programs. Other states still need to assess the costs of adding screening for SCID relative to potential benefits. Methods: We constructed a customizable decision tree model as a spreadsheet tool to estimate the potential cost benefit of universal NBS for SCID compared to no screening. Probabilities and costs were derived from published literature and recommendations from expert panels, with averted deaths valued at $9 million each. Findings: For a birth cohort of 86,600 babies, annual costs of screening, including laboratory tests, short-term follow-up, diagnostic testing of false-positive cases, clinical care and diagnostic testing of non-SCID T-cell lymphopenia cases were estimated to total $747,008. Total benefit consisting of the value of infant deaths averted and treatment costs avoided by SCID screening were estimated at $3.99 million, resulting in net benefit of $3.24 million and a benefit-cost ratio of 5.35. If no monetary value is assigned to deaths, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio is approximately $30,000 per life-year saved (using 3% discount rate). Conclusions: Universal NBS for SCID provides the possibility of early diagnosis, improved treatments, and lives saved for babies with SCID. This spreadsheet tool can help state officials to estimate SCID screening costs and net benefits. E.5: Methodological Approaches to Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 310) Chair: Kerry Krutilla ([email protected]), Indiana University Presentations: 1. Regulatory Compliance Learning Costs: An Assessment of Agencies’ Practices, Ronald Bird* ([email protected]), U.S. Chamber of Commerce A potentially significant element of the compliance cost of a new or revised regulation encompasses the time, effort and expense that affected entities incur to learn whether the rule imposes liabilities on them and, if so, what are the dimensions of the compliance obligation. This is a cost element that is antecedent to the labor and capital costs of actually complying with the rule, and it is a cost element that potentially impacts to some degree those who are exempt from the scope of the regulation as well as those who are its intended targets. There is no osmosis by which I learn without opportunity cost that a new requirement exists and whether or not it applies to me. I must 38 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier know the rules that impact my choices and action. When new rules are announced, I must learn whether or how constraints on my choices and actions are altered. Learning requires time, and time use implies opportunity cost. This paper surveys existing research literature regarding regulatory learning costs, and it reviews employment, occupational safety and health, hazardous waste disposal, land/water use, and other regulations issued anew or revised over the past ten years to determine the frequency and detail of analysis by regulatory agencies of regulatory learning costs. Illustrations of aggregate learning costs for selected regulations are calculated. Strategies that agencies have used or could use to reduce learning costs are identified and evaluated. The paper also addresses the fundamental question of whether learning cost is proper to include in a benefit cost analysis of a regulation designed to correct a significant economic inefficiency arising from market failure. Could consideration of short-term learning costs create an inefficient barrier to adoption of standards that yield long-term economic efficiency or equity benefits? 2. The Mercatus Center’s Regulatory Cost Calculator: A Survey Tool to Capture the Full Opportunity Costs of Regulation, Jerry Ellig* ([email protected]), George Mason University Federal agencies’ Regulatory Impact Analyses often measure expenditures necessary to comply with proposed regulations. But they frequently fail to assess the full opportunity costs of regulations, including lost business opportunities and forgone consumer surplus. This presentation will document these claims with data from an evaluation of 108 RIAs for economically significant regulations proposed between 2008 and 2012. It will then propose a solution that would give federal agencies access to better data on the full range of anticipated costs of individual regulations. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has developed a survey tool that can be administered to regulated entities by trade associations, independent researchers, or government regulatory analysts. Costs of regulation captured by the survey include: Direct expenditures on compliance, such as paperwork, new equipment, or employee training; The value of owner, manager, or employee time diverted to regulatory compliance; Profit forgone on investments the business no longer makes as it is forced to divert resources to regulatory compliance; The profit businesses lose and the value consumers lose from the price increases, quality changes, or other sales-reducing behavioral responses induced by regulation; The costs of resources that businesses and trade associations expend to influence regulation. These costs are not always explicit or obvious, because some of them involve lost opportunities rather than expenditures. The purpose of the Cost Calculator is to provide better information on the full cost of regulation by identifying both direct and indirect costs and eliciting information that economists can use to estimate the cost of regulation to customers and our broader society. 3. Spatial Analysis in a Benefit-Cost Context, Erik Gomez* ([email protected]) and Douglas Scheffler, U.S. Coast Guard The typical tools of benefit-cost studies are the analysis, modeling, and display of data in spreadsheets or specialized statistical software. Many benefit-cost analyses involve data that have a location reference, such as street addresses of homes and businesses, latitude longitude coordinates of accidents, or at a larger scale names of cities and towns. This type of data is called “geo-referenced or spatial data” and are capable of analysis by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS is used to create, manage, analyze, and exhibit spatial information. Specifically, spatial statistics have the ability to analyze spatial distributions, patterns, events, and relationships. These 39 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier features add to conventional statistics in that they incorporate spatial elements into their computations. This allows users to identify statistically significant phenomena, assess overall clustering patterns, and explore spatial connections. The proposed presentation will provide an overview of GIS, review the tools that can be used in the analyses of benefits and costs, discuss how the Coast Guard has added GIS to its cost-benefit analysis toolkit, and provide a case study of a Coast Guard regulatory analysis project that used GIS to complement the traditional spreadsheetbased calculations. We also will provide an overview of the GIS market. 4. Multi-Period Benefit-Cost Analysis, Troy G. Schmitz* ([email protected]) and Dwayne J. Haynes, University of Florida; Troy G. Schmitz, Arizona State University We discuss the link between classical welfare economics and benefit-cost analysis (BCA) by conducting a welfare analysis of the 2004 Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act (buyout). Using both a one-period and multi-period partial-equilibrium model, we compare and contrast several possible choices of benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) that could be used to assess the impact of the buyout. These BCRs differ depending upon, for example, whether one includes foreign consumers in the model. We also include a model accounting for distributional considerations, by explicitly using distributional welfare weights. A strong conclusion is that one-period BCRs are not affected by the choice of social discount rate, because the present value calculation associated with a one-period BCR requires the discounting of both the benefits in the numerator and the costs in the denominator. We extend the analysis to include multiple time periods and show the conditions under which the choice of social discount rate alters the underlying present values associated with the BCRs. We find that the BCRs are only slightly affected by the choice of social discount rate. The relative length of the different periods under consideration has more of an effect on the BCRs than the choice of the discount rate. Session 6 - Friday, March 20, 10:45 - 12:15 A.6: Valuing Reductions in Morbidity and Mortality (Marvin 309) Chair: Joseph E. Aldy ([email protected]), Harvard University Presentations: 1. The Morbidity and Mortality Components of the Value of Statistical Life, Elissa Philip* ([email protected]) and W. Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt University Although government agencies generally rely on a uniform value of statistical life (VSL), numerous studies have documented substantial heterogeneity in these values. Most of the research to date on the heterogeneity of the VSL has focused on differences based on individual characteristics, such as age, and on long-term illnesses, such as cancer. This article uses labor market data to estimate the mortality and morbidity components of the VSL for acute accidents. The individual fatality rate data from the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) make it possible to construct measures of the mortality and morbidity components of fatality risks. Our labor market estimates of morbidity effects are positive, even for fatalities that are predominantly caused by traumatic injuries. However, the fatality risk, rather than the morbidity loss associated with the fatal accident event, is the principal contributor to the VSL. 2. Implications for Regulatory Analyses of Different Approaches to Estimating the Value of a Statistical Life, Ines Havet* ([email protected]), Ontario Ministry of the Environment 40 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier The Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) estimates used in benefit-cost analyses have been discussed extensively and a large number of studies have been developed estimating values with increasing refinements over time to the statistical methods applied. This article is concerned with the theoretical foundations of the VSL estimates recommended by regulatory agencies in regulatory benefit-cost analyses and their implications in terms of the findings put forward to decision makers. First, the difference between willingness-to-pay (WTP) and willingness-to-accept-compensation (WTAC) will be reviewed. While in theory, VSL estimates based on either approach should be equal, in practice estimates tend to be higher when measuring WTAC. We argue that WTAC measures are not appropriate in analyses of regulatory proposals that are typically intended to reduce the risk of premature death rather than provide compensation for a loss. Second, the recommended VSL values used by regulatory agencies in benefit-cost analyses will be reviewed, including whether they are based on WTAC or WTP studies and the estimates from published regulatory analyses. The recommended VSL estimates are derived either exclusively from WTAC or WTP studies or some combination of the two. Where possible, the results of these analyses will be reassessed by applying WTP estimates. We propose that where WTAC values were used, the conclusions of analyses may be biased toward accepting the proposal. 3. Eliciting Fatal and Non-Fatal Risk Trade-Offs: An Experimental Approach Using an Incentivized Learning Experiment, Hugh Metcalf* ([email protected]), Susan Chilton and Jytte Seeted Nielsen, Newcastle University In general, stated preferences are elicited to be used in a Cost Benefit Analysis to inform an allocative decision process. The Risk-Risk Trade-Off (RTO) has been used to elicit the relative trade-off between changes in morbidity and mortality risk (Viscusi et al., 1991) however only a very few examine potential methodological issues affecting this method. An experimental design will allow us to explore whether it is possible to ameliorate two general problems within stated preference surveys that may affect the RTO approach. The first problem is a general lack of sensitivity in surveys to changes in characteristics that economic theory would predict should matter to respondents. This includes “scope insensitivity” which has been found in the willingness-to-pay literature. We refer to this generic problem as “stickiness”. “Stickiness” might manifest itself in two ways in the RTO method Firstly, in people indicating indifference between increasing the risk of two very different health outcomes, or, secondly, in an unwillingness to take any risk increase in more severe outcomes. The second general problem is framing effects and the violation of the assumption of procedural invariance (Tversky & Thaler 1990). In the RTO literature, the risk change has either been presented as a marginal change to the current situation (Chilton et al., 2006) or as the total risk in the changed situation (Viscusi et al. 1991). In this paper we compare the responses from these two frames. We also explore the impact on responses of a pre-survey experiment that invokes the spirit of “rationality spillover” (Cherry et al., 2003), in which subjects make (incentivised) risky choices as in a standard laboratory experiment. We find that the RTO is affected by the “stickiness” problems but the impact on central tendency measures can be reduced by the learning experiment and by a change in risk frame. 4. Preferences for Life-Expectancy Gains: Sooner or Later? James K. Hammitt* ([email protected]) and Tuba Tuncel, Harvard University/Toulouse School of Economics We assess individuals’ preferences for time paths of reductions in mortality risk yielding a lifeexpectancy gain of about one month. Using data from a survey of more than 1000 French residents, we find substantial heterogeneity. We elicit pairwise preferences between three primary perturbations of age- and gender-specific survival curves: transient (reduce hazard for next ten years), additive (reduce hazard in all years by an additive constant) and proportional (reduce hazard in all years by a multiplicative constant). The preference order implied by these pairwise responses is transitive for 85 percent of respondents. The most common preference orders, accounting for over 53 percent of respondents, are strict indifference, proportional ≻ additive ≻ transient, and the exact 41 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier opposite ranking. These preference orders are consistent with globally risk-neutral, risk-seeking, and risk-averse preferences toward longevity, respectively. Choices between one of these scenarios and a latent version that provides no risk reduction for the first 10 or 20 years are consistent with these risk postures. Preferences toward the time path of mortality-risk reduction are not strongly associated with individual characteristics, although respondents who are younger, higher-income, or exhibit higher consumption-discount rates tend to exhibit less longevity-risk aversion. B.6: Food and Water Issues (Marvin 307) Chair: James Neumann ([email protected]), Industrial Economics Discussant: Linda Abbott ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Agriculture Presentations: 1. Valuing an Ounce of Prevention: the Social Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Alternative Strategies to Secure Groundwater Quality, Ted Horbulyk* ([email protected]), University of Calgary This analysis characterizes and compares alternative strategies to secure groundwater supplies under threat of nitrate contamination from agriculture. These approaches are to be viewed as a social investment to be made by a local water authority acting in the public interest. The authority’s objective function consists of delivering a future supply of municipal drinking water that meets or exceeds specified targets for nitrate concentration at the lowest social cost. The present analysis is structured as a case study of the choices being faced by the Oxford County in Ontario, Canada, where its ability to provide a future supply of safe drinking water to municipal users is threatened by nitrate contamination. There is a relatively large set of management and policy approaches upon which it can draw. For instance, there is an option to encourage or to require the adoption so-called beneficial management practices by local farmers, such as the reduction of application rates of nitrate fertilizers. Remediation approaches include treating the water for nitrates either before (in situ cross-injection scheme) or after (ion-exchange process) the water has reached the wellhead. Alternatively, it may be preferable to develop new groundwater or surface water sources, or to construct new conveyance inter-ties to existing sources elsewhere within the county. Demand-side management approaches might be needed to reduce the future rate of demand growth, thereby delaying the need to make specific capital investments. The contribution of this analysis is to bring together all of these alternatives in a social costeffectiveness framework that makes explicit the nature of the planning and management tradeoffs faced by these water managers when acting on society’s behalf. The careful and standardized comparison of these management approaches on a present value basis can make clear that, in many cases, an ounce of prevention can be an extremely valuable investment indeed. 2. Consumer Valuation of Organic Egg Characteristics and its Implications for Public Policy, Eliza M. Mojduszka* ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Agriculture We develop and estimate a discrete choice model of product choice for organic eggs in the US market in the period from 2010 to 2014. The model links observable and latent consumer characteristics to observable and latent product attributes and allows us to obtain consumer preference parameters and demand elasticities with regard to product attributes. 42 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, we build a comprehensive understanding of the relative importance of different determinants of consumer organic egg choices from 2010 to 2014. Second, we make a significant contribution to demand analysis by basing this understanding on the use of uniquely comprehensive data sets and theoretical/modeling techniques that evaluate demand on the brand/product level. The overall goal is to analyze what is driving consumer choices of organic eggs and the implications of these drivers for public policy (including animal welfare policy) in the United States. A particular focus is the relative importance of organic egg attributes, consumer attitudes and perceptions, as well as marketing and product development strategies in determining consumer demand for organic eggs. We define individuals' perceptions as latent variables corresponding to the product attributes. More specifically, perceptions are individual’s estimates or beliefs of the levels of attributes of product alternatives. We also define individual’s attitudes as latent variables corresponding to the characteristics of the decision maker. Attitudes reflect individual’s taste, awareness, needs, values, and capabilities. Thus, in our model, the distribution of consumer utilities depends on both observable and latent (unobservable) individual characteristics. These determine preferences for product attributes (some of which are unobservable) and hence determine demand. The database utilized in our estimations integrates product level IRI scanner purchase data, product attributes data (including information on the level of animal care provided by organic egg producers and rated by the Cornucopia Institute in the form of Organic Egg Scorecards), consumer characteristics data, as well as producers’ marketing efforts data for products and brands in the organic eggs category. By integrating all of our data sources, we are able to obtain more precise estimates of the demand parameters that are crucial for the design of more effective public policy (including animal welfare policy) and for the marketing and promotion of food products by producers and distributors. 3. Benefit Cost Analysis of Water, Smita Bhatia* ([email protected]), Specstra Consulting Inc. Water is fundamental to human life. Unlike fossil fuels, there is no substitution for water. The valuation of water will become increasingly relevant as the water demand increases across the globe. Water management is complex and needs to be addressed now to avert a future global crisis. Private companies have suggested commodification of water. While this is an interesting proposition; it underscores important issues such as access, ownership and pricing. Water is viewed as a public good and a unique feature of water management is the role of individuals. This increases the complexity in determining the demand, supply, storage and transportation of water. Water management requires intelligent and thoughtful foresight in policies. Good policies require sound benefit cost analysis. How should water be valued in the face of scarcity and unequal distribution of water resources globally? As a commodity, is water different than other natural resources? Do existing economic models adequately address the complexities in water management? This presentation will canvass these issues from a benefit-cost analysis perspective. It will examine the utility of existing benefit cost analysis models for natural resources to manage water. At a minimum, water economics needs to be broader than the neoclassical focus on efficient allocation of resources. C.6: Local Policy Issues (Marvin 308) Chair: Richard Zerbe ([email protected]), University of Washington Discussant: Stuart Shapiro ([email protected]), Rutgers University 43 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Presentations: 1. How to Deal with a Public University’s Funding Cut: An Analysis Using Benefit-Cost Principles, Qingqing Sun* ([email protected]), Daniel Ahn and Michael McBride, University of Washington The Office of financial management (OFM) in Washington State plans to cut 15% from higher education funding next year. We are assuming that Western Washington University (WWU)’s response to the potential cuts in state funding is to increase tuition substantially. We want to estimate the impact of tuition increase on WWU itself and local community as a whole; and whether this decision will maximize social net benefit, while overcoming budget shortfalls. At first, we measure the impact of raising tuition on primary market: 1) the quantity and quality of WWU’s utilities and 2) the quality of undergraduate education - academic reputation and 3) WWU’s freshmen enrollment. And then we measure the impact of raising tuition on secondary market: 1) community colleges and other universities’ freshmen enrollments in Washington State 2) economic Impact of WWU’s tuition increase on local economy 3) WWU Students’ financial burdens. And then we calculate and discount the social net welfare of WWU’s tuition increase in 7% discount rate, which is the same recommend by Office of Management and Budget. Based on our research, we estimate the tuition elasticity of total headcount at WWU is -0.094. We find out tuition increase decreases WWU’s freshmen enrollment slightly and does not improve WWU’s academic reputation and infrastructure obviously. Besides, tuition increase also does not have obvious economic impacts on local economy and WWU students’ financial burden. However, it did increase enrollments at community colleges and other Universities in Washington State who have lower tuitions and higher admission rates than WWU. Finally, we also conduct sensitivity analysis to test the validity of our study. 2. The Benefits and Costs of an Earthquake Early Warning System in Washington State, Eli Lieberman* ([email protected]) and Andrew Calkins, University of Washington Earthquake Early Warning Systems have the potential to help mitigate loss of life, severity and number of human causalities, damage to infrastructure, and negative impacts to an array of businesses by providing advance warnings that range from a few seconds to multiple minutes. Washington State is a high-risk area for seismic activity, including being susceptible to the damages associated with a magnitude nine earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Washington State coast. This paper presents a preliminary attempt at conducting a cost-benefit analysis of implementing an Earthquake Early Warning System for Washington State. Specifically, this paper examines the Shake Alert system proposed by the United States Geological Survey and several West Coast universities including the University of Washington. The study develops a casualties-avoided model for assessing whether such a system is worthwhile, given extreme variability and uncertainty in earthquake prediction models and early warning technology. Impacts are limited to the Shake Alert’s potential to mitigate loss of human life and the severity and number of casualties. A Monte Carlo analysis is used to provide a more robust finding owing to variability of the study’s variables. We believe we lay a solid framework from which a more comprehensive analysis can be built. 3. Ex Ante Benefit-Cost Analysis of New Stadium Construction: Theory and Application, Bryan Roberts* ([email protected]), Econometrica; Daniel Greene, Alden Street Consulting 44 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Since 1990, dozens of states, municipalities, and local governments have spent nearly $19 billion tax payer dollars to construct new sports stadiums in hopes of fostering positive economic growth. Yet, in justifying the use of such large taxpayer subsidies, many governments fail to use cost-benefit analysis and, instead, rely on distorted and often unreliable economic impact analysis. As a result, new stadium construction has become an important issue for benefit-cost analysis. We contribute to the current literature on the economic benefits of sports stadiums by developing a methodology for analyzing the benefits of new stadium construction in a willingness-to-pay framework that takes into account increased welfare of event attendees due to improved facility quality. This approach requires careful specification of the market structure for event attendance at the new stadium. We also identify benefits related to secondary-market effects that can be legitimately incorporated into a benefit-cost analysis. We then apply our framework to the construction of a new stadium for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. This example involves a shift of stadium location from the City of Atlanta to Cobb County, which is in the Atlanta metropolitan region. We evaluate benefits and costs both from the broader perspective of the Atlanta metropolitan region and the narrower perspective of the Cobb County government. A Kaldor-Hicks table of benefits and costs for specific stakeholders is presented for each perspective. D.6: Real Option Value and Federal Offshore Leasing (Marvin 413414) Chair: Michael Livermore ([email protected]), NYU Institute for Policy Integrity Panelists to Include: 1. Michael Hanemann ([email protected]), UC Berkeley and Arizona State University This presentation will describe the concept of option value and how it arises in the context of natural resources extraction. The real option value of a discrete irreversible investment in the face of uncertainty is the value of information conditional on not taking on the investment in the present. This information comes from learning more about the state of the world: the effect of drilling on the environment or reducing the uncertainty over the price of environmental services. The real option value can be broken down into two components: the pure postponement value (PPV), which does not depend on the chance of getting new information, and the pure informational quasi-option value, which depends on society’s ability to learn information in the future. Professor Hanemann will discuss the Arrow-Fisher-Hanemann-Henry (AFHH) option value, also called the quasi-option value, and its applications. 2. Scott Farrow ([email protected]), University of Maryland, Baltimore County Many government agencies account for the first part of the real option value (PPV) in their benefitcost analyses, and may partially account for the second part (pure informational quasi-option value). Professor Farrow will discuss recent and potentially new applications of options value, including merging risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and real options. For example, valuing flood protection may involve a comparison of multi-state expected damages, option price and cumulative prospect measures. Professor Farrow will also discuss other potential applications of option value to federal natural resources management. 3. Jayni Hein ([email protected]), New York University In 2014, Policy Integrity challenged the legality of the Department of the Interior’s five-year offshore leasing plan, for failure to use or consider option value when determining the timing and location of 45 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier offshore leases. A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is expected by early 2015. We will provide an overview of the case, focusing on the issues we raised with respect to option value. We argued that the Department of the Interior should use an option value approach in order to fully value the American people’s offshore resources—including the value attached to the option to delay extraction of those resources. Framing leasing decisions as now-ornever choices made within a single five-year period will systematically lead to inefficient overexploitation of natural resources. Further, different offshore regions face different uncertainties, and therefore, have different options value. In line with its statutory mandate under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Department of the Interior should transparently disclose regional differences in costs—including environmental and social costs—and consider the uncertain environmental sensitivities and uncertain drilling and remediation technologies that certain regions (such as the Artic) face. By failing to account for the informational value of delay with respect to environmental and social uncertainties, Interior exposes the public to suboptimal levels of environmental risk, as well as suboptimal returns on the sale of it nonrenewable offshore resources. 4. Peter Howard ([email protected]), New York University The fourth presentation will review methods for estimating real option and quasi-option values, in the context of leasing in the arctic region of the United States. There are several well established methodologies that agencies can use to estimate quasi-option value. First, an agency could use contingent valuation techniques by surveying various regulators involved in oil-environmental planning decisions to determine the value that they place on waiting (Fisher and Hanemann, 1990). Second, an “engineering-economic approach” could be applied where the theoretical model is parameterized using studies from the literature, additional analysis, and surveys of experts (Fisher and Hanemann, 1990). Third, a programming approach can be applied. While similar to the previous method, this method consists of running numerical simulations (Mahul and Gohin, 1999, and HaDuong, 1998) that allow for multiple runs using different future scenarios (e.g., low and high drilling cost scenarios). Calculating the real option value would require only one more step in which the value of the additional information can be calculated by comparing the results of these simulations that are run under certainty to those that are run under uncertainty using the formulas established in the literature. If some of the parameters for such models (e.g. probabilities of various scenarios) could not be determined, Monte Carlo simulations, which are frequently used in physicals sciences and finance when there is significant uncertainty, can be used. Last, though not specifically calculating quasi-option value, the agency could expand its current calculation of the hurdle price, which captures the value of the option to delay from market price uncertainty, to a social hurdle price. The benefits and costs of these various approach as they apply to the government’s drilling decisions are discussed. E.6: International Benefit-Cost Analysis Issues (Marvin 310) Chair: Timothy Brennan ([email protected]), University of Maryland, Baltimore County Discussant: William McCarten ([email protected]), World Bank - retired Presentations: 1. Should BCA Be Harmonized? Leo Dobes* ([email protected]), Australian National University; George Argyrous, Australia and New Zealand School of Government; Joanne Leung, New Zealand Ministry of Transport 46 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Governments invariably require expenditure proposals to be supported by a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA), or a similar approach. In theory, this allows decision-makers to compare proposals and to choose those with the highest net social benefits. The results of BCAs depend on the specific methodology adopted: a production function approach is likely to yield a different result to an analysis based on stated preference methods. However, results will also depend on the values of variables and parameters used as inputs to Net Present Value (NPV) calculations. Discount rates are the usual focus of those promoting consistency of analytical inputs. But NPVs can also be highly sensitive to key variables such as travel time, the marginal excess tax burden used (or not used), or externalities such as congestion or greenhouse gas emissions. Without consistency of methodology and input variables, BCAs will not provide directly comparable options for decision makers, even if individual analyses are highly sophisticated. A base case response might be to simply present decision-makers with unadjusted studies, provided that they meet fundamental analytical standards. A ‘work-around’ used by some central agencies is to partly recalculate or adjust BCA results to increase the degree of comparability. A third potential solution is to standardize the variable and parameter values to be used by analysts as a means of increasing consistency. This paper presents a taxonomy of current practice in the various Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions and examines the arguments for and against greater harmonization of methodology and input variables in BCA in a federal system. 2. The Social Cost-Benefit Analysis of Research Infrastructure: An Exploratory Framework, Massimo Florio* ([email protected]), University of Milan; Emanuela Sirtori, CSIL Centre for Industrial Studies When decision-makers consider fundamental research infrastructures, such as astronomic observatories, nano-electronic laboratories, oceanographic vessels and particle accelerator facilities (just to mention some examples) are faced by this question: what is the net social benefit of these costly scientific ventures? The answer is often given qualitatively, or even rhetorically, by scientists and other stake-holders in these projects. But can we go beyond anecdotal evidence, narratives and ad hoc studies and try a structured ex-ante and ex-post social cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of infrastructural for pure research? This paper explores some of the methodological issues involved when valuing the costs and benefits of capital-intensive scientific projects. The paper has been drafted in the context of the research project “Cost/Benefit Analysis in the Research Development and Innovation Sector” sponsored by the European Investment Bank University Research Sponsorship program. After a brief overview of the earlier literature on the evaluation of fundamental research infrastructures, the authors propose a conceptual model and suggest empirical approaches for estimating the quantities and shadow prices of cost aggregates and different categories of economic benefits. Benefits associated to fundamental research include: the non-use value (i.e. existence and quasi-option values) of discoveries, the creation and diffusion of knowledge in the form of papers signed by scientists, technological spillover to the supply chain and other external users, human capital formation, and cultural effects imputable to outreach activities. In discussing possible approaches for assessing costs and benefits in this challenging field, attention is also given on how to deal with uncertainty and risk affecting the analysis. Directions for future research are sketched in the concluding section, along with some policy implications for national and supranational institutions and funding agencies. 3. New Trends in CBA of public investments in France, Emile Quinet* ([email protected]), Paris School of Economics-Ecole des ponts Paris Tech Cost benefit assessment of investments is an ongoing preoccupation for public authorities in France as in many other countries. Long enshrined in the legislation concerning Transportation, this requirement has been quite recently extended by the law to all public investment in civil investments. 47 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier France has a long tradition in this field. On several occasions, commissions met to define and improve evaluation procedures. Their findings were then converted into guidelines by the competent authorities. The report presented in this communication revises the recommendations of previous reports issued around 10 years ago. The main trends are: Updating the monetary values, the result being an increase of the values of amenities. Assessing the wider effects, especially the effects on space, the increase in productivity due to agglomeration externalites and the market powers. Taking into consideration the systemic risk through procedures akin to the financial methods (risk-free discount rate+risk premium depending on the correlation between the project’s benefits and the economic growth), Setting the rules for hierarchization of projects Taking into account the long term issues Improving the governance of projects. These points will be developed using the transport sector as a primary example, since economic calculations are most widely used in that sector, even if the energy and health sectors will also be considered. An example of implementation of these new procedures is presented in the case of a large project, the “Grand Paris Express”, a ring metro around Paris area which is now scrutinized. Session 7 - Friday, March 20, 2:00 - 3:30 A.7: Retrospective BCA of Federal Rules (Marvin 309) Chair: Dick Morgenstern ([email protected]), Resources for the Future Presentations: 1. A Retrospective Assessment of EPA’s Air Toxics Rules, Art Fraas* ([email protected]), Resources for the Future 2. A Retrospective Assessment of Federal Efforts to Reduce Foodborne Illness: Shell Eggs and Salmonella Enteritidis, Randall Lutter* ([email protected]), Resources for the Future and University of Virginia 3. A Retrospective Evaluation of the Cluster Rule: The Pulp and Paper Industry, Ron Shadbegian* ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Wayne Gray, Clark University Dicussant: Al McGartland ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency B.7: Law and Economics Perspectives on Benefit-Cost Analysis (Marvin 307) Chair: Jack Knetsch ([email protected]), Simon Fraser University Presentations: 48 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 1. Is Every Regulation Potentially Cost-Benefit Justified?: Methodological Pluralism and the Estimation of Regulatory Benefits, Jason Scott Johnston* ([email protected]), University of Virginia Recent work by Acs and Cameron (2013) reports that the requirement of regulatory impact analysis (RIA) has had no statistically significant impact in lowering the rate at which regulations are promulgated. As some such impact was clearly among the objectives of requiring RIA, this is a phenomenon in need of explanation. This paper argues that the reason that RIA does not constrain regulation is because there is so much discretion in the estimation of regulatory benefits. This argument is made by first surveying recent estimates of regulatory benefits since 1990 prepared and published by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). It reports, as have previous studies, that the vast majority of quantified benefits for regulations promulgated since 2008 come from the reduction in fine particulate air pollution. It also notes that increasingly widespread use of contingent valuation in estimating regulatory benefits. The paper then critiques the methodological basis for recent regulatory benefit estimations. It is argued that surveys, especially contingent valuation surveys, are unlikely to generate reliable and valid measures of actual benefits. It is also argued that epidemiological evidence alone is highly unreliable as a measure of actual health impacts. This point is made with a detailed analysis of estimates of the impact of fine particulates on excess mortality. The data show that particulates have their biggest impact on cardiovascular mortality among the elderly in the winter months. However, the medical literature reveals a variety of mechanisms that account for the heightened risk of death from cardiovascular causes among the elderly during the winter, and these mechanisms do not involve exposure to elevated levels of fine particulates. If researchers look statistically at only one particular factor – fine particulates – while ignoring others, then estimates are subject to omitted variables bias. A better approach is to look first to identify potential causal mechanisms so that all potential factors are controlled for in statistical studies of the relationship between exposure levels and excess mortality rates. 2. Judicial Review of Agency Benefit-Cost Analysis, Caroline Cecot* ([email protected]) and W. Kip Viscusi, Vanderbilt University This Article evaluates judicial review of agency benefit-cost analysis (“BCA”) by examining a substantial sample of thirty-eight judicial decisions on agency actions that implicate BCA. Essentially, the Administrative Procedure Act tasks federal courts with ensuring that federal agency action is reasonable. As more agencies use BCA to justify their rulemakings, the court’s duty often requires judges to evaluate the reasonableness of agency BCAs. In this Article, we discuss the challenges that trigger judicial review of agency BCAs and the standards that govern the review. We then present specific examples of how courts analyze BCAs. Overall, we find many examples of courts promoting high-quality and transparent BCA. Courts have been willing to question BCA methodology and assumptions and request more transparency on these issues. As agencies rely more on BCA in their decision making, judicial review of BCA will be increasingly important. The stakes are high. Additional judicial oversight can be valuable—but bolstering any oversight effort to provide a policy check can also impose societal costs if desirable policies are delayed or left unimplemented. Ideally, efforts to foster greater judicial review should be structured so that the enhanced role of the judiciary itself passes a benefit-cost test. Armed with this Article’s examination of the state of judicial review of BCA, scholars can more effectively evaluate the impact of judicial checkpoints on the use of BCA in agency decision making and assess whether shifting more regulatory oversight authority to the courts would be an effective approach to fostering more welfareenhancing policies. 3. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Distributional Weights, and Institutions, Matthew Adler* ([email protected]), Duke University 49 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Distributional weights are a natural way to incorporate distributional considerations into cost-benefit analysis (CBA). CBA with appropriate weights can mimic either a utilitarian social welfare function (which is averse to inequality in income), or even a more egalitarian social welfare function. However, important institutional objections have been raised against distributional weighting. First, isn’t it better to handle distributional considerations through the tax system, with regulatory CBA undertaken in its traditional unweighted form? Second, doesn’t the specification of distributional weights involve contestable value choices? Is it normatively legitimate for unelected regulators to make such choices? This presentation will briefly present the theory of weighting, and then address the institutional questions. 4. Using Kaldor-Hicks Tableaus for Distributional Accounting in Regulatory Impact Assessment, Kerry Krutilla* ([email protected]), Gabriel Piña, and Yu Zhang, Indiana University The OMB recommends that agencies provide a separate description of the distributional effects of regulations in their regulatory impact assessments (RIAs). However, a review of recent RIAs shows that agencies rarely follow this analytical guidance. Our research assesses the feasibility of improving the representation of distributional effects in RIAs using the Kaldor-Hicks tableau (KHT) display format. In concept, a KHT disaggregates total benefits and costs and allocates them to stakeholders, and also records between-stakeholder financial transfers. The format provides a conceptually consistent display of distributional effects at a chosen level of stakeholder representation, revealing the effects on “public stakeholders” as a fiscal impact assessment. To operationalize this concept, five final RIAs completed from 2011-2013 are chosen for detailed analysis, one from each of the DOT, EPA, DOL, HHS, and DHS. KHTs are constructed based on information presented in the regulatory impact assessments themselves, and assumptions about the tax status of the identified industrial sector subjected to the regulation. We show that it is feasible to construct KHTs for regulatory impact assessments from the data that is usually collected to produce them, and that this approach provides better insight about the distributional effects of regulations than current practice. Moreover, revealing the fiscal impact of regulations is relevant for the efficiency analysis, given the marginal value of public funds. C.7: Preliminary Recommendations from the 2nd Panel on CostEffectiveness in Health and Medicine (Marvin 308) Chair: Theodore Ganiats ([email protected]), UC San Diego Panelists to Include: Scott D. Grosse ([email protected]), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention James K. Hammitt ([email protected]), Harvard University D.7:Cost-Effective Air Quality Strategies (Marvin 413-414) Chair: Anne Smith ([email protected]), NERA Presentations: 1. A Critical review of the Development and Use of Externality Costs for Air Quality, Elisabeth Gilmore* ([email protected]), University of Maryland 50 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Externality costs are needed for regulatory and policy analysis. For exposure to adverse air quality, an impact pathway approach is generally used to estimate the externality costs. This entails converting the emissions to ambient concentrations, translating the concentrations to their equivalent health and ecosystem effects, and applying willingness to pay estimates to avoid these outcomes. Since this approach can be time consuming, estimates from the literature are frequently used instead of conducting a full impact pathway approach. There is, however, limited guidance for selecting literature values for a specific policy under consideration. Here, I conduct a critical review of the available estimates for the externality costs from air quality. I then use these values to develop a set of characteristics to consider when selecting literature values, namely physical features of the sources, exposed population, and air quality chemistry and meteorology. For pollutants that undergo significant chemical transformations after release, it can be challenging yet critical to account for differences in the temporal profile of the emissions, concentrations of other pollutants and meteorological conditions. For policies where this is likely to matter, it may be more appropriate to conduct a bounding analysis of the magnitude of the air quality externality rather than selecting a value from literature. 2. A Mixed Integer Programming Model for National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) Attainment Strategy Analysis, Alexander Macpherson* ([email protected]), Heather Simon, David Misenheimer, Charles Fulcher, Bryan Hubbell and Robin Langdon, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently reviewing the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone. States with areas designated as nonattainment with the standards are required to develop State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to demonstrate how pollution levels will be reduced to meet the standard. Historically, many states have developed SIPs independently. However, for ozone, some states have at times recognized the important role of regional transport (for example the Ozone Transport Commission which addresses ozone air quality in the Northeast) and have developed regional agreements to control ozone-forming emissions. These types of regional air quality management approaches have the potential for improved pollution control efficiency if states collaboratively determine the least-cost controls within or across regions. We present a Mixed Integer Programming model for devising least cost control strategies that recognize the potential for interstate transport of ozone. While linear programming models have been used to assess regional ozone control strategies, this model applies the framework nationally to identify efficiencies from reducing regional transport. Air quality is characterized by a sourcereceptor matrix estimating the impact of regional emissions reductions on ozone concentrations at monitors. Least cost control strategies are determined by decisions about using specific control technologies on emissions sources. This tool allows user-defined policy constraints about which ozone precursors and emissions locations to consider in identifying the least cost attainment strategy. A case study is presented using information from a series of emissions sensitivity air quality model simulations along with current emissions abatement supply information. The model holds promise for evaluating alternative scenarios, testing the role of transport in compliance strategies, and identifying monitors exerting disproportionate influence on attainment strategies. The case study is a proof of concept but is limited by the specificity of the source-receptor matrix. As additional air quality simulations are performed, more refined information about the response of ozone to emissions reductions in specific locations will improve the accuracy of the model. 3. Benefit-Cost Analysis of Phasing Out Coal in Power Plants and for Residential Use, Henrik Andersson* ([email protected]), Professor, Toulouse School of Economics (LERNA); Yana Jin and Shiqiu Zhang, Peking University To cope with the serious air pollution situation the Chinese State Council issued the National Action Plan on Air Pollution Prevention and Control. Coal consumption reduction was chosen as a key strategy and three key regions were targeted to achieve negative growth of total coal consumption 51 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier by 2017. One of these regions was the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (BTH). In this study we focus on Beijing and its proposed prioritization of coal reduction options, which has also then been followed by many other local governments, focusing on substituting coal fired power plants and large boilers by gas fired ones, while substituting residential cooking and heating coal consumption to cleaner energy sources is given least emphasis. Despite the fact that this priority can realize rapid coal reduction, the substitution for gas fired plants has been remarkably costly, and the efficiency of pollution reduction and health protection from such interventions are under debate. This study estimates the benefits and costs of interventions for phasing out coal in power plants and among residential users in Beijing. Our study helps to evaluate the conventional claim that coal fired power plants contribute more on ambient air quality-born health damage, and allows for taking both ambient and household air-pollution from coal combustion into consideration. The results suggest that the substitution of coal in residential sector can realize net social benefits, while for the power plant sector it actually brings net social costs. This analysis indicates that the current coal consumption reduction plan in Beijing, with its focus on coal fired power plants instead of the residential sector, will realize limited health and environment benefits, and may induce huge social cost in the long run. Given the current trend of scaling up coal reduction interventions in China, this study is timely for reevaluation and adjustment of the current policy. 4. Benefit-Cost Analysis of Efficient Environmental Damage Emission Pricing in the Power Sector, Daniel Shawhan* ([email protected]), Resources for the Future; Biao Mao, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ray Zimmerman, Charles Marquet, and Jubo Yan, Cornell University; Yujia Zhu, Arizona State University We estimate the benefits and costs of charging each commercial electricity generator in the US and Canada for the estimated value of the premature mortality caused by its sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions and the climate changes caused by its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. We use, and describe, several new methods useful in benefit-cost analysis of electricity policies and transmission and generation investments. Our representation of the power grid retains all of the thousands of high-voltage transmission line segments. The power flows in our model are based on physics, which cause flows to be largely uncontrollable except by changing where the power is generated. This is important because avoiding the overloading of each transmission segment can affect how a policy or investment will change the pattern of generation, and hence the costs and benefits. We have also developed a method of modeling price-responsive demand while keeping the model linear for tractability. We use an air pollution fate-and-transport model in order to estimate the mortality impact of each generator, which depends on its location and effective smokestack height. We know the economic and environmental characteristics of each of the 19,000 generators from creating an unprecedented combination of twelve data sets. We simulate Pigouvian pricing of just SO2 and NOX, just CO2, and both together. We calculate the consumer, producer, environmental, government, and congestion surplus of each policy. The SO2 and NOX pricing has a net benefit almost twice as large as that of the CO2 pricing and reduces CO2 by almost as much, while increasing the average electricity price by less. Both kinds of pricing together reduce estimated premature deaths by 12,000 per year and produce an estimated net benefit similar to the current direct variable cost of electricity. E.7: Valuing Outcomes and Performing BCA for Social Policy Intervention (Marvin 310) Chair: Francisco Perez-Arce ([email protected]), RAND Corporation Presentations: 52 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 1. Benefit-Cost Analysis of Communities That Care: Social Policy Implications in Washington State, Margaret R. Kuklinski* ([email protected]), University of Washington Social policies increasingly consider the economic implications of various policy alternatives. In Washington state, E2SHB 2536, passed in 2012, mandated that “prevention and intervention services delivered to children and juveniles in the areas of mental health, child welfare, and juvenile justice be primarily evidence-based and research-based.” In response, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) and the University of Washington Evidence-Based Practice Institute, both independent bodies, were asked by the legislature to create an inventory of evidencebased practices and services that met criteria for receiving legislative funding and support. To receive the most favorable “evidence-based” designation, programs needed to generate positive net present value when subjected to benefit-cost analysis, among other criteria. In this presentation, we examine the policy from the lens of one evidence-based program included in the inventory, Communities That Care (CTC). CTC is a coalition-based prevention system shown in a rigorous community-randomized trial to have sustained preventive effects through Grade 12 on youth delinquency and substance use. CTC has also been subjected to a benefit-cost analysis with WSIPP’s benefit-cost analysis software tool, also used to evaluate programs for inclusion in the E2SHB inventory. The tool can monetize benefits across a number of policy and program areas, incorporates Monte Carlo methods for capturing uncertainty, and produces several policy-relevant outcomes, including net present value, costs and benefits to various stakeholders, investment risk, and cash flows. Using CTC as a case study, this presentation shows how substance use and delinquency outcomes are monetized under the model. It also illustrates the sensitivity of benefit-cost conclusions to alternative assumptions about costs, effect sizes underlying benefits estimates, and time frame for estimating benefits. Results point to the need for principles and standards in economic analysis of prevention programs, particularly when conclusions are used to inform policy decisions. 2. Investigations of the Links Between Early Non-cognitive Skills and Future Adult Outcomes: Relevance for Economic Assessment of Programs for Children, Damon Jones* ([email protected]) and Mark Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University In recent years, much focus has been directed toward understanding the link between non-cognitive traits in children and the likelihood of healthy personal development and eventual adult wellbeing. Such traits play an important role both independently of and in conjunction with cognitive traits (such as IQ) in influencing long-term outcomes. From an economic perspective, non-cognitive skills are worth studying given their potential role in influencing future labor force outcomes or reducing the likelihood for future problems that require societal resources (crime, substance abuse, etc.). An additional feature of non-cognitive traits is that they may be more malleable than cognitive skills, and thus may be effective targets for prevention or intervention programming. A challenge lies in effectively assessing children’s competencies at an early enough age when such efforts might be introduced but also when such skills can be measured. Our study investigated how well adult outcomes can be predicted from ratings of children’s socialemotional (SE) skills, one indicator of non-cognitive ability, measured many years earlier in elementary school. We examined how early SE skills predict late adolescent and adult outcomes in participants from lower SES neighborhoods in both urban and rural areas. We utilized data from three intervention projects. Our analytic models assessed the link between indicators in early elementary school and economically-relevant outcomes 13-19 years later. Models included a large number of control variables enabling us to explore the unique determination of featured predictors. Results indicate how early non-cognitive skills are uniquely predictive of adult outcomes 53 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier across multiple domains such as crime, employment and future need for public assistance. Such data that are rich in coverage of early non-cognitive skills as well as adult outcomes many years later can provide important information that may facilitate development of shadow prices for use in economic assessment of programs for children. 3. Valuing Outcomes of Social Programs: The RAND Database of Shadow Prices for Benefit-Cost Analysis of Social Programs, Lynn A. Karoly* ([email protected]), RAND Corporation In conducting benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) of social programs, the analyst requires estimates of the economic value, or “shadow prices,” associated with the various short- and long-term outcomes that may be affected by a particular program. Indeed, many important benefits that flow from welldesigned and -implemented social programs are rarely, if ever, captured in monetary terms in the associated BCAs, or such BCAs are not performed, in part because shadow prices (i.e., the economic values) are not readily available to express the outcomes that the programs affect in monetary terms. In other cases, BCAs are performed but are not comparable with BCAs in the same or other areas of social policy because different shadow prices are used. The lack of valid shadow price measures or the inconsistent use of such measures across BCAs currently constrains the set of social programs for which benefit-cost studies are conducted and limits the comparability of those BCAs that are prepared. This presentation will feature the Valuing Outcomes of Social Programs (VOSP) database, a new resource developed by researchers at the RAND Corporation, which serves as a centralized web-based repository of shadow prices for use by the research and policy communities. The primary objective for the database is to reduce the “transaction costs” associated with conducting BCAs of social programs by providing researchers with an objective, welldocumented resource. A second goal is to support standardization in the shadow prices used by the research community. The presentation will outline the range of shadow prices covered in the database, describe the methods used to populate the database, and demonstrate the output from the tool. 4. Strengthening Benefit-Cost Analyses of Behavioral Prevention: Report on Progress of the Society for Prevention Research’s Task for on Economic Analyses of Prevention, Max Crowley* ([email protected]), Duke University Increasingly, behavioral researchers are recognizing the importance of understanding the costs and benefits of their interventions. Yet, best practices for conducting benefit-cost analyses of programs that intervene in psychosocial functioning remain limited. For instance, infrastructure for delivering preventive services continues to be inadequate. As a result, cost analyses of these programs must include essential, but hard to measure, capacity building resources (e.g., home visiting, substance abuse prevention). Further, prevention programs that intervene early in life are known to accrue benefits across decades. Such expanded time-horizons make direct measurement of benefits difficult (e.g., Perry Preschool, Abecedarian). Guidance on such issues is needed to support future benefit-cost evaluations. This presentation will provide an overview of efforts by the Society for Prevention Research’s Task Force on Economic Analyses of Prevention to provide such guidance. This includes outlining a working paper developed by the taskforce. In particular, this work explores issues around how to integrate behavioral research with economic and public finance methodologies. Efforts to find consensus around best practice for quantifying resources and valuing benefits will be shared. The struggle to balance the need for consistent estimates—while maintaining a flexible methodology will be highlighted. Feedback will be solicited from the SBCA membership. A new NIH supported research network studying the science of investing in healthy development and employing best practices identified by the SPR task force will be introduced. 54 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Session 8 - Friday, March 20, 3:45-5:15 p.m. A.8: Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Analysis of Risk Regulations (Marvin 309) Chair: Jennifer Baxter ([email protected]), Industrial Economics, Incorporated Panelists to Include: 1. Elizabeth Ashley ([email protected]), U.S. Office of Management and Budget 2. Tony Cheesebrough ([email protected]), National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 3. Sandra Hoffmann ([email protected]), Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture 4. Amber Jessup ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 5. Clark Nardinelli ([email protected]), U.S. Food and Drug Administration 6. Rosemarie Odom ([email protected]), U.S. Coast Guard 7. Al McGartland ([email protected]), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 8. Jack Wells ([email protected]), U.S. Department of Transportation (retired) Regulatory impact analysis (RIA) is an important tool for improving the quality of regulation and motivates the development of methods that are useful in other risk policy contexts. However, U.S. federal agencies face analytic challenges both common across the government and unique to their agencies. Developing and applying better tools both improves the quality of regulatory analysis and offers potential for improving agency decision making in other contexts. This panel brings together regulatory and other economists from across the government to share the particular analytic challenges and opportunities they observe in using these tools to promote evidence-based decision making. B.8:Retrospective Review of Federal Regulations (Marvin 307) Chair: Maeve Carey ([email protected]), Congressional Research Service Discussant: James Broughel ([email protected]), George Mason University Presentations: 55 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 1. Learning from Experience: An Assessment of the Retrospective Review of Agency Rules and the Evidence for Improving the Design and Implementation of Regulatory Policy, Joseph E. Aldy* ([email protected]), Harvard University A well-functioning regulatory program makes the American people better off by promoting innovation; encouraging competition; protecting the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat; and improving the safety of our workplaces and the goods we buy. Determining if society is realizing the most out of its regulatory program requires rigorous analysis. Despite a long track record of prospective analysis for proposed regulations, the Federal government has a mixed record on retrospective review of existing regulations. Every administration dating back to the Carter Administration in 1978 has implemented some form of regulatory look-back. The ad hoc nature of the Presidential-mandated reviews, the apparent need for every administration to implement such a retrospective review, and the heterogeneity in approaches to retrospective review by agencies suggest that efforts to enhance and institutionalize retrospective review are merited. This paper evaluates the practice of the Obama Administration's retrospective review and places it in the context of the academic literature and past administrations' efforts at retrospective review. In particular, I analyze the processes and products of agency review plans, agencies' initial tranche of identified rules for review, and every economically significant rule finalized in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 in my examination of retrospective review under Executive Orders 13563, 13579, and 13610. This assessment identifies best practices among agencies, describes key lessons learned from the ongoing and past retrospective review efforts, and makes recommendations for ways to improve retrospective review. 2. Looking Back at Retrospective Review: How Did Agencies Measure Up in 2014? Sofie E. Miller* ([email protected]), The George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center Through a series of Executive Orders, President Obama has encouraged federal regulatory agencies to review existing regulations “that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned.” Evaluating whether the intended outcomes of regulations are met ex post can be challenging, so multiple government guidelines instruct agencies to incorporate retrospective review plans into their proposals during the rulemaking process. To support this effort, the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center examined significant regulations proposed in 2014 to assess whether they included plans for retrospective review, and provided recommendations for how best to do so. This paper examines how often agencies successfully incorporate plans for ex post analysis into their rules and provides agencies with five recommendations to facilitate transparency, public accountability, and measurement of their rules’ success. 3. A Framework for Evaluating Regulatory Outcomes, Kathryn Newcomer* ([email protected]), Susan Dudley, and Estelle Raimondo, George Washington University Benefit-cost analysis is a key component of the regulatory impact analysis that agencies are required to conduct before introducing new regulations. However, the U.S. government has traditionally placed much less emphasis on ex-post evaluation of regulatory outcomes after they are in effect. This emphasis on ex-ante rather than ex-post regulatory impact analysis differs from the practice in other government policy tools, where evaluation of program outcomes is routine. Better ex-post measurement and evaluation of regulatory benefits and costs is essential for evidencebased decision making, and could be helpful not only for gauging regulatory effectiveness, but also for improving ex-ante predictions of regulatory impact. This paper will attempt to bring together the techniques of program evaluation and regulatory benefit-cost analysis, which are each wellestablished in their own right but have not generally been used to inform each other. We start with the premise that evaluating the impact of regulations is a process analogous to evaluating the impact 56 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier of public programs, which depends on proper modeling and valid and reliable measurement of inputs, outputs and outcomes. We hope to develop a general framework for measuring regulatory impacts and test it with a case study. C.8: State and Local Benefit-Cost Issues (Marvin 308) Chair: Ronald Bird ([email protected]), U.S. Chamber of Commerce Discussant: Jerry Ellig ([email protected]), George Mason University Presentations: 1. Evidence-Based Policymaking: Integrating Cost-Benefit Analysis into a Broader Approach to Fund What Works in State and Local Government, Darcy White* ([email protected]) and Torey Silloway* ([email protected]), The Pew Charitable Trusts Governments make policy and budget choices each year have long-term impacts on their fiscal and social outcomes. Currently, governments often make these decisions based on inertia, anecdotes, and political and ideological factors, but they can achieve substantially better outcomes by using rigorous evidence to guide their choices. This approach, called evidence-based policymaking, can enable policymakers to strategically fund and operate their programs, and benefit-cost analysis plays a key role in this process. To date, most states and local governments have made limited use of benefit-cost analysis and evidence-based policymaking, and there has been no comprehensive roadmap to help guide them on this approach. Since 2011, the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative (Results First) has worked in a growing number of states to help them customize and use a benefit-cost analysis model initially developed by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. Results First has also developed an integrated framework of steps that governments can take to build and support a system of evidence-based policymaking. This framework, built on an extensive review of research and discussions with public officials, practitioners, and academic experts, includes five key components – program assessment, budget development, implementation, oversight, and evaluation. The framework will be published as a Pew report in the fall of 2014. This presentation will present the framework and highlight the role of benefit-cost analysis in helping governments to think holistically about using research and benefit-cost analysis to inform their budget and policy choices. It will emphasize that while identifying and investing in cost-effective programs and practices are an essential step to achieving strong outcomes for citizens, it must be done in conjunction with implementation fidelity and outcome monitoring. It will also discuss how Results First states have used benefit-cost analysis to drive evidence-based policymaking in their states and the results they have seen to-date. 2. Why Look Back? An Analysis of State Government Decisions to Analyze Existing Regulations, Stuart Shapiro* ([email protected]), Debra Borie-Holtz and Ian Markey, Rutgers University Regulatory agencies have long been required to analyze the costs and benefits of their prospective regulations. Yet once a regulation is in place, discussions of its effectiveness and its costs and benefits are, if they are examined at all, the province of academic analyses. Rarely do agencies revisit earlier regulatory decisions. In recent years “retrospective review” has started to become more common. At the federal level, President Obama’s Executive Order 13563 required agencies to conduct some reviews of existing regulations. Among the 50 states, exactly half have also implemented retrospective review 57 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier requirements on regulatory agencies. For proponents of retrospective review (also known as “lookbacks”) this trend is an encouraging sign that governments are beginning to examine the benefits and costs of previous regulatory decisions, and hopefully revise policies that have not been successful. However, good policy is only one possible motivation for this change. We examine the recent wave of retrospective review in the 50 states in an attempt to determine the motivation for states to pursue this policy reform. We have collected data on the use of retrospective reviews in each state as well as political and economic variables that may have influenced the decision by governors and legislatures to undertake a look-back at older regulations. Using survival analysis, we model the decision to undergo retrospective review of regulations as a function of these independent variables. The results of this analysis are then used to draw conclusions about the likely fate of retrospective review as political and economic conditions change. 3. Ex-Ante Cost-Benefit Analyses of Community-based DRR Interventions in the Caribbean, Meenakshi Jerath* ([email protected]) and Juan Pablo Sarmiento, Florida International University The evidence for the effectiveness and impact of disaster risk reduction (DRR) interventions concerns humanitarian organizations, donor agencies and communities alike. The cost benefit analysis (CBA) of DRR projects can demonstrate the attractiveness of these interventions by enumerating the benefits of lower costs to donor agencies and reduced damages to beneficiaries. This paper presents an approach to analyze community-based DRR interventions through the findings of CBA within the larger context of project management. The study aims to assist leaders and practitioners in the humanitarian community in analyzing a DRR project within its institutional and community setting with a focus on capacity building of personnel for evidence based decisionmaking. We conducted an ex ante CBA of several DRR interventions to improve climate change resilience in Caribbean communities by estimating the costs incurred by the society and the benefits accrued to the community in general. The current accepted rate of the central bank of each country was selected as the discount rate for analysis. The effect of varying discount rates (3–10%) on the benefit cost ratio (BCR) was tested. All the DRR interventions analyzed, including safer shelters, water and health micro-projects, obtained a BCR above 1, justifying the implementation of all the interventions. For interventions other than safer shelters, the BCR ranged from 2.6 to 215. The study revealed several areas for policy consideration within humanitarian organizations: the need to comply with standards of a rigorous CBA, capacity building in the areas of CBA and project management, need for timely integration of economic analysis of DRR projects within the project cycle, importance of data collection and record keeping, building informational sources, and use of more simplified related forms of CBA such as cost effectiveness and least cost analysis. D.8: Assessing Benefits in Consumer Protection Regulation (Marvin 302) Chair: Lisa A. Robinson ([email protected]), Harvard Center for Risk Analysis Panelists to Include: 1. Howell Jackson ([email protected]), Harvard Law School 2. Paul Rothstein ([email protected]), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 3. Michael Livermore ([email protected]), University of Virginia 4. Art Fraas ([email protected]), Resources for the Future 58 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier 5. Dick Morgenstern ([email protected]), Resources for the Future In the United States, consumer protection regulation has not traditionally been the focus of extensive benefit-cost analysis. But recent decisions of the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, new statutory mandates under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, and a flurry of law review articles have brought the topic to the fore. Drawing on a new survey of seventy-two recent consumer protection rulemakings, this panel will review current approaches to benefit analysis in consumer finance and analogous areas of consumer protection. The presentation will offer an overview of how federal agencies are currently analyzing and quantifying the benefits of consumer protection regulation, including statistics about the incidence and intensity of benefit analysis across the survey sample and selected subsamples. The presentation will also include a more in-depth discussion of eighteen “exemplars” of benefit analysis across nine different benefit types. Together these exemplars could be said to represent the current state-of-the-art benefit analysis in consumer protection regulation. Finally, we hope to propose a handful of specific future research projects that could improve the quality of benefit analysis in consumer protection regulation and explore institutional arrangement to improve the quality of benefit analysis in federal agencies. E.8: The Effectiveness of Policies Involving Health Warning Labels and Signage: Cigarettes, e-Cigarettes, and Alcohol (Marvin 310) Chair: Trudy Ann Cameron ([email protected]), University of Oregon Discussant: Joseph Cordes ([email protected]), The George Washington University Presentations: 1. Will New Warning Labels Encourage or Discourage the Use of Electronic Cigarettes? Evidence from Experimental Markets, Don Kenkel* ([email protected]), Cornell University Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that deliver various concentrations of nicotine in an aerosol mist. The use of e-cigarettes is rising rapidly and is expected to reach $3 billion in US sales in 2015. Emerging research suggests that e-cigarettes are much less harmful than regular cigarettes and hold promise as smoking cessation devices, although they are not approved as medical devices. E-cigarettes are also not currently required to carry warning labels. However, the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gave the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products. The FDA recently announced that it intends to use that authority to require ecigarettes to carry a warning label that they contain nicotine which is derived from tobacco and is an addictive chemical. Also recently, some e-cigarette manufacturers have voluntarily adopted somewhat stronger warning labels. Under another regulatory scenario, e-cigarette manufacturers could apply to market their products as a modified risk tobacco product that could carry a more favorable label. We conduct discrete choice experiments to estimate the impact of alternative warning labels on adult smokers’ use of e-cigarettes. The data are from on-line surveys that present smokers with choices between their current tobacco product, an e-cigarette, and a smoking cessation product. The e-cigarette warning label is randomly assigned to vary across different choice scenarios. The econometric discrete choice model yields estimates of the impact of the different warning labels on the probability smokers choose e-cigarettes. In addition, the model yields an estimate of smokers’ willingness to pay for the different warning labels. 2. What are the Potential Benefits of Graphic Warning Labels? Richard M. Peck* ([email protected]) and John A. Tauras, University of Illinois at Chicago 59 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference 2015: Advancing the Policy Frontier Huang et al. (2013) estimate that in the United States, graphic warning labels (GWL) would result in 5.3 to 8.6 million less smokers in 2013, reducing smoking prevalence by 12.6 percent to 20.4 percent. Using the framework of Murphy and Topel (2006), we find that the annual gross benefits of GWL arising from lower levels of premature death would be about $32 billion to $52 billion dollars annually. This is higher than the FDA estimates of 225 to 675 million dollars annually – their approach is similar but there are important methodological differences (page 36723 of Federal Register, V. 76, No 120, 2011). Their estimates of the efficacy of GWL are also much lower. If we use recently proposed adjustments for loss of consumer surplus, then the net benefits of GWL are $10 to $16 billion annually, for premature death alone. An adjustment is also made to take into account the fact that on average current smokers have lower than average income so that the average value of a statistical life that is used to calibrate the parameters of the model is lower (4.2 million dollars). Initial prevalence rates vary by state, gender and age and the population numbers, from the Census Bureau, are for 2011. The model is linear, so the consequences of adjusting wages, or the calibrating value of statistical life are straightforward to compute. 3. The Effects of Posted Point-of-Sale Warnings on Alcohol Consumption during Pregnancy and on Birth Outcomes, Gulcan Cil* ([email protected]), University of Oregon In 23 states and in the District of Columbia, all alcohol retailers are required by law to post signs that warn against the risks of drinking during pregnancy. This study examines the effects of these pointof-sale alcohol warning signs (AWS) on alcohol consumption during pregnancy and on birth outcomes using the variation in the timing of AWS legislation across states. The contributions of this study are two-fold. First, this research is an investigation of the effectiveness of AWS as a policy tool in reducing prenatal alcohol use. Moreover, using a quasi-experimental setting that results from a plausibly exogenous policy change that affects all pregnant women, this study aims to establish a causal link between prenatal alcohol exposure and birth outcomes. Using the National Vital Statistics data and a specification that accounts for state and year fixed effects, state-specific time trends, and individual- and state-level covariates, I find a statistically significant reduction in the odds of drinking during pregnancy in response to AWS laws. This finding is supported by the results obtained using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data in a model that compares the change in alcohol consumption before and after AWS laws among pregnant women with that of non-pregnant women. In the reduced form regressions for birth outcomes, I find that AWS laws are associated with decreases in the odds of very low birth weight and very pre-term births. 60
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