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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Global Climate Policy Will Have Net Benefits Larger Than Anyone Thinks (And Welfare Gains, Strangely, Are Likely To Be Much Larger Yet), Philip E. Graves
Global Climate Policy Will Have Net Benefits Larger Than Anyone Thinks (And Welfare Gains, Strangely, Are Likely To Be Much Larger Yet), Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
As with other public goods lacking strong special interest support, global climate policy suffers from two serious theoretical flaws. The first is failure to endogenize the labor-leisure decision when conducting benefit-cost analysis. Recognition that income generated will not remain the same pre-and-post policy results in downward bias in benefit estimation. Much more importantly, there will generally be free riding in input markets in addition to the well-known output demand revelation problem. Since even households with very high marginal values cannot individually increment public goods, too little income will be generated and too much of the income that is generated will …
Implications Of Global Warming: Two Eras, Philip E. Graves
Implications Of Global Warming: Two Eras, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
The purpose of the present paper is to attempt to gain insights into the implications of global warming that is anticipated in the future. In attempting to think about really long-term regional implications, it seems naïve to look at global warming without thinking about long-standing trends in other variables that would be expected to interact with climate change over time. I envision two quite different “eras,” a first filled with considerable danger of both economic and environmental collapse. But—if humanity survives the first period—a second period of great promise for humanity and the global ecosystem is likely to take place. …
The Hedonic Method Of Valuing Environmental Policies And Quality, Philip E. Graves
The Hedonic Method Of Valuing Environmental Policies And Quality, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Benefit-cost analysts attempt to compare two states of the world, the status quo and a state in which a policy having benefits and costs is being contemplated. For environmental policies, this comparison is greatly complicated by the difficulty in inferring the values that individuals place on an increment to environmental quality. Unlike ordinary private goods, environmental goods are not directly exchanged in markets with observable prices. In this chapter, the hedonic approach to inferring the benefits of an environmental policy is examined.
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Enviromental Projects: A Plethora Of Biases Understating Net Benefits, Philip E. Graves
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Enviromental Projects: A Plethora Of Biases Understating Net Benefits, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost …
Environmental Valuation: The Sum Of Specific Damages Approach, Philip E. Graves
Environmental Valuation: The Sum Of Specific Damages Approach, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this book chapter.
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Environmental Projects: A Plethora Of Systematic Biases, Philip E. Graves
Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Environmental Projects: A Plethora Of Systematic Biases, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There are many reasons to suspect that benefit-cost analysis applied to environmental policies will result in policy decisions that will reject those environmental policies. The important question, of course, is whether those rejections are based on proper science. The present paper explores sources of bias in the methods used to evaluate environmental policy in the United States, although most of the arguments translate immediately to decision-making in other countries. There are some “big picture” considerations that have gone unrecognized, and there are numerous more minor, yet cumulatively important, technical details that point to potentially large biases against acceptance on benefit-cost …
The Hedonic Method: Value Of Statistical Life, Wage Compensation Property Value Compensation, Philip E. Graves
The Hedonic Method: Value Of Statistical Life, Wage Compensation Property Value Compensation, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this book chapter.
A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The Valuation Of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding For Non-Individually Incrementable Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
For at least fifty years economists have argued that vertically-aggregated marginal willingness to pay, when set equal to marginal provision cost, will result in optimal public good provision levels. This methodological approach would be expected to yield an exact analog, in terms of optimal levels of public good provision, to efficient provision of private goods in a perfect market setting. There is, however, a potentially serious flaw in the approach as actually practiced, since initial incomes are implicitly–and wrongly–taken to be optimal. From a given income, the output demand revelation problem has long been recognized–that there will be difficulty inferring …
The Simple Analytics Of The Wta-Wtp Disparity For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
The Simple Analytics Of The Wta-Wtp Disparity For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A number of explanations for this phenomenon have been advanced, each perhaps of relevance in particular settings, with little consensus being achieved as to whether any explanation satisfactorily resolves the problem. A traditional utility …
A Note On The "Union Effect" In Vsl Studies, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The "Union Effect" In Vsl Studies, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Viscusi and Aldy (2003) observe that “most studies of the U.S. labor market find that union affiliation is positively correlated with a greater wage-risk tradeoff while international evidence is much more mixed.” They provide several arguments as to why the risk premium might be higher for union members (marginal versus average worker preference, the quasi-public good nature of workplace safety, and better safety information for the unionized). An alternative explanation–concentration of union membership in undesirable locations–can account for both the apparent higher risk premium in union jobs in the United States and the failure to find that gap in the …
Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves
Voodoo Multipliers Revisited: Public Policy For Recessions And Boomtimes, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this brief column.
A Note On The Design Of Experiments Involving Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
A Note On The Design Of Experiments Involving Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Concern about potential free riding in the provision of public goods has a long history. More recently, experimental economists have turned their attention to the conditions under which free riding would be expected to occur. A model of free riding is provided here which demonstrates that existing experimental approaches fail to explore a potentially important real-world dimension of free riding. In a cash-in-advance economy, free riding becomes a two-stage problem, while existing experiments only address the second stage. That is, one would expect households with high demands for public goods relative to private goods to generate less income than households …
If The Large Wta-Wtp Gap For Public Goods Is Real (And There Are Good Reasons To Think So) Conventional Welfare Measures Are Simply Incorrect, Philip E. Graves
If The Large Wta-Wtp Gap For Public Goods Is Real (And There Are Good Reasons To Think So) Conventional Welfare Measures Are Simply Incorrect, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A traditional utility maximizing model is presented here that predicts–as both measures are currently calculated–that WTA will exceed WTP, quite plausibly by a substantial amount for public goods. Moreover, it is shown here that …
The Wta-Wtp Gap And Welfare Measures For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
The Wta-Wtp Gap And Welfare Measures For Public Goods, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
A robust finding in experimental economics is that decision-makers often exhibit a much smaller dollar willingness to pay (WTP) for an item than the minimum amount that they claim to be willing to accept (WTA) to part with it. The spread between these two numbers is particularly large for public goods, raising serious public policy concerns regarding which number, if either, is appropriate for valuing such goods. A number of explanations for this phenomenon have been advanced, each perhaps of relevance in particular settings, with little consensus being achieved as to whether any explanation satisfactorily resolves the problem. The traditional …
An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves
An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians' tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government …
Optimal Public Goods Provision: Implications Of Endogenizing The Labor/Leisure Choice, Nicholas E. Flores, Philip E. Graves
Optimal Public Goods Provision: Implications Of Endogenizing The Labor/Leisure Choice, Nicholas E. Flores, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Conventional analysis of public goods provision aggregates individual willingness to pay while treating income as exogenous, ignoring the fact that we generate income to allow us to purchase utility-generating goods. We explore the implications of endogenizing the lahor-leisure decision by explicitly considering leisure demand in a model of public goods provision. We consider benefit analysis of public goods provision and find that increments of the public good will generally be under-valued using conventional analysis while decrements to the public good (rare in public good settings) will be overvalued (JELC91,D61,Q5I)
Environmental Perceptions And Environmental Reality: When More Is Less, Philip E. Graves
Environmental Perceptions And Environmental Reality: When More Is Less, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this article.
The Bias Against New Innovations In Health Care:Value Uncertainty And Willingness To Pay, Surrey M. Walton, Philip E. Graves, Peter R. Mueser, Jay K. Dow
The Bias Against New Innovations In Health Care:Value Uncertainty And Willingness To Pay, Surrey M. Walton, Philip E. Graves, Peter R. Mueser, Jay K. Dow
PHILIP E GRAVES
This paper offers a model for the bias found in willingness-to-pay valuations against new treatments. For example, this bias provides an explanation for patient preferences that make it difficult for formularies to take treatments off their lists, even when newer treatments would appear to be clearly preferable. The appeal of the model, which is based on imperfect information, is that it is consistent with rational preferences and rational behavior by patients, which are necessary for standard models and methods related to decision theory, costeffectiveness, and efficiency.
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Robert L Sexton
There is no abstract, but the paper describes first-best solutions to the abandonment of automobiles, arguing that litter fines are inefficient with or without a mandatory deposit. However, the latter can generate first-best optimality.
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Robert L Sexton
There is no abstract, but the paper describes first-best solutions to the abandonment of automobiles, arguing that litter fines are inefficient with or without a mandatory deposit. However, the latter can generate first-best optimality.
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
Controlling The Abandonment Of Automobiles: Mandatory Deposits Vs Fines, Dwight Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract, but the paper describes first-best solutions to the abandonment of automobiles, arguing that litter fines are inefficient with or without a mandatory deposit. However, the latter can generate first-best optimality.
The Robustness Of Hedonic Price Estimation, Philip E. Graves, James C. Murdoch, Mark A. Thayer, Donald M. Waldman
The Robustness Of Hedonic Price Estimation, Philip E. Graves, James C. Murdoch, Mark A. Thayer, Donald M. Waldman
PHILIP E GRAVES
There is no abstract for this article; it begins with the Introduction.
On Mandatory Deposits, Fines, And The Control Of Litter, Dwight R. Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
On Mandatory Deposits, Fines, And The Control Of Litter, Dwight R. Lee, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton
PHILIP E GRAVES
Mandatory deposits on beverage containers have received enthusiastic support among environmentalists as a means of controlling litter. In modeling the fficts of a deposit on litter generation and recovery it is found that this enthusiasm is well iustified. Interestingly enough, few supporters of deposits seem to realize how justified their support is, as evidenced by their lack of enthusiasm for eliminating the littering fine which serves to dilute the effectiveness of the deposit. The most efficient solution possible when a fine is combined with a deposit is shown to require less littering, but more litter, than is an efficient solution …
Morbidity And Pollution, Ronald J. Krumm, Philip E. Graves
Morbidity And Pollution, Ronald J. Krumm, Philip E. Graves
PHILIP E GRAVES
Time-series analysis of effects of pollutants on emergency hospital admissions indicates important synergistic interactions among pollutants and to a lesser degree nonlinearities in effects of single pollutants. Comparisons of alternative econometric specifications are made to determine the appropriateness of incorporating nonuniform pollution impacts. The data substantially support the existence of synergisms among pollutants with high levels of sulfur dioxide, SO, (particulates), increasing the impact of particulates (SO,) on emergency hospital admissions. Marginal effects of either pollutant are, however, small at current ambient air quality levels. These results indicate that damage estimates were likely to be understated during the 1960’s when …