published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Exposure to air pollution is a leading cause of premature death worldwide. An increasing part of air pollution results from industrial activity and the production of energy. When unregulated, emissions of air pollutants constitute a market failure as polluters do not bear the costs imposed on society at large. My dissertation develops empirical methods to test the effectiveness and distributional effects of environmental policies designed to address this externality. To do so, I apply econometrics and data science techniques on large datasets from cutting-edge research in environmental science and engineering that I match with microeconomic data. The dissertation makes use of new datasets on air pollution derived from satellite imagery, as well as micro-level data on power plant operations and housing transactions across the United States. Chapter 1 assembles unit-level data to disentangle the factors that led US power plants to achieve the unprecedented reductions in emissions of the past fifteen years. I calculate the costs incurred by the electricity generation sector and compare these costs to the correspond- ing health benefits. In hedonic regressions, I use these shocks to emissions to estimate the demand for clean air with micro-level data on housing transactions. Chapter 2 studies the causal impacts and evaluates the distributional effects of stringent emissions markets that were put in place to target power plants emissions of air pollutants in the Eastern US. Chapter 3 uses new satellite imagery to document the inequalities in the exposure to air pollution in American cities and their recent evolutions.

Air pollution is a major environmental problem that poses numerous health risks to those exposed to it. The adverse health effects are compounded in a place as dense as Hong Kong and further intensified due to its proximity to industrial and manufacturing plants across the border in Mainland China. Hong Kong has attempted to address the issue of air pollution through the enactment of legislation and policies such as the 1983 Air Pollution Control Ordinance and Air Quality Objectives, but so far these measures have not proven to be particularly effective. The new Air Quality Objectives are not as stringent as claimed by the Environmental Protection Department, the legal system is limited in enforcing air pollution legislation, and the Air Pollution Control Ordinance itself is flawed at best and requires urgent attention. An examination of the air pollution legislation and policies of overseas jurisdictions such as Ontario, California, and Tokyo show that these regions have made significant progress in addressing air pollution by prioritizing public health and utilizing a variety of measures to reduce air pollution. Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act gives the Ministry of the Environment numerous ways to deal with polluters and the Environmental Bill of Rights helps facilitate public participation in environmental decision-making by granting the public the right to apply for an investigation or review of existing legislation and policies. California’s Air Resources Board has been commended for enacting air pollution regulations that are more stringent than national standards and many states have adopted the Golden State’s standards as their own. In Japan, government, corporate, and public responsibilities for reducing air pollution and protecting the environmental are outlined in the Basic Environmental Law. Legislation providing compensation to victims of pollution as well as the use of a Total Mass Emissions Control system has helped the country achieve an extraordinary rate of compliance with national air quality standards. By studying, modifying and applying air pollution control legislation and policies being used in the three jurisdictions to its own Air Pollution Control Ordinance and air pollution control management as a whole, Hong Kong can be better prepared to protect public health and it’s environment in the future. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

The radical shift in approach to the Air Quality Management (AQM) strategy that has been introduced recently, through the promulgation of the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act (AQA), makes provision for a number of innovative measures in the control of air pollution in South Africa. These include the appointment of Air Quality Officers, the development of Air Quality Management Plans, the designation of priority areas, the provision for stricter enforcement conditions, and the broad implementation of monitoring. A significant change is in the form of delegating the greatest responsibility for implementation of measures to the local government tier, comprised of metropolitan areas, district and local municipalities. Local authorities are recognised as a sphere of government, however, they are impeded, inter alia, by matters of limited financial resources, lack of skills capacity, and the slow transformation of organisational culture and structure (Cloete, 2002). The implementation ofthe AQA by local government is framed by an understanding ofthe responsibilities of local government, as well as the principal components of AQM and their implementation. The selected areas for study are Uthungulu, Uthukela, and Ugu district municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, representing administrative and geographical variation. Existing and potential air quality issues, and their plans to address these issues, were identified and assessed in the municipalities using the Integrated Development Plans. The capacity of municipalities to implement the AQA was assessed using interviews, focusing on the interpretation of the AQA, technical capabilities, and implementation of AQM. Awareness of municipal responsibilities under the AQA was limited, although advances in AQM implementation had been made by municipalities. Responsibilities reflecting technical measures or activities that were currently undertaken by the municipality, such as monitoring and enforcement, were well recognised. However, the related policy and management tools, of Air Quality Officer (AQO) appointment and Air Quality Management Plan (AQMP) development, were less emphasised by municipal respondents. Limited progress in implementation of the AQA was observed, with only AQO appointment and ambient monitoring being significantly applied. The greatest challenge facing municipalities is the securing of financial resources for personnel and equipment. Progress in technical fundamentals is noted, most notably in emission inventories and monitoring capabilities, although communication on air quality issues remains poor, with limited mechanisms in place for inter-governmental or public communication. There is a prevalence of the use of AQMPs as planning tools, as well as general concepts of town planning and zoning. However, in general, planning departments are not involved. A significant proportion of municipalities have a means of assessing progress, whether explicitly or not. A framework for implementing the AQA is produced to guide local government efforts, and provides a summation of the outcomes of the research. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Location is a critical component of business decisions. A firm's location decision may be influenced not only by market forces, such as the location of input suppliers, output processors and competitors, but also by government policies if such policies impact their expected profits and are applied non-uniformly across space. Likewise, a firm may adjust its business strategy, including opening and closing establishments and laying off employees as responses to changes in environmental regulations. In certain polluting industries, location decisions may include choosing potential storage sites for geologic carbon sequestration or finding landfills for industrial solid waste. There is extensive literature discussing the effects of environmental regulations or agglomeration economies on firm location decisions but few studies analyze the interactive effect of environmental regulations and agglomeration economies across regions in the United States. The potential consequences of changes in environmental regulations may include loss of polluting establishments, jobs, and income. Geological carbon sequestration offers long term storage opportunities to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHGs). Incorporating environmental risk into economic assessments of geological sequestration choices is crucial for finding optimal strategies in using alternative carbon storage sites with limited capacity. This dissertation consists of three essays that address the above issues. The first essay examines the interactive effects of air quality regulation and agglomeration economies on polluting firms' location decisions in the United States. Newly available annual (1989-2006) county-level manufacturing plant location data for the United States on seven pollution intensive manufacturing industries are applied in the analysis. Conditional Poisson and negative binomial models are estimated, an efficient GMM estimator is also employed to control for endogenous regulatory and agglomeration variables. Results indicate that births of pollution intensive manufacturers are deterred by stricter environmental regulation; and are attracted by local agglomeration economies. County attainment/nonattainment designations can impose heterogeneous impacts over space and across industries. The magnitude of the regulatory effect depends on the level of local agglomeration. Urbanization economies offset the negative impacts of environmental regulation, whereas localization economies can reinforce or offset the negative impacts of environmental regulation, depending on the industry. The second essay analyzes the effect of changes in regulatory environmental standards on the total stocks of establishments and local jobs and income Results indicate the effects vary across counties in the United States. When the standards were raised to 80 percent of the current level, from 2007 to 2009, the affected counties would lose a total of 326 establishments, 14,711 jobs with $705 million U.S. dollars of income each year. At the national economy level, the impacts of tightening environmental regulations are relatively small. The third essay constructs a dynamic optimization framework that deals with optimal utilization of alternative nonrenewable resource sites (geological formations) with possible negative externalities. We apply the model to an optimal usage problem of alternative long term CO₂ geologic storage sites for carbon. The storage sites are different in terms of capacity and potential leakage after CO₂ injection; the problem is determining the minimum cost for storing a fixed amount of CO₂ (sequestered) within a certain time period. Analytical solutions show the decision rule depends on the discount rate, storage capacities, marginal CO₂ storage costs, and environmental damage costs associated with CO₂ leakage from alternative sinks. The framework provides critical information about the optimal timing of switching from one resource sequestration site to another. / Graduation date: 2013 / Access restricted to the OSU Community at author's request from Feb. 1, 2013 - Feb. 1, 2015