Concern about environmental injustice has been driving the recent effort to characterize risks from exposures to air toxics at very fine spatial resolutions. However, few studies seek to understand the potential policy implications of regulating risks at increasingly finer spatial resolutions and the impact of resulting policies on distribution of risks. To address this gap, the broad question for this research is how could the choice of spatial resolution for regulation of risks from toxic air pollutants affect emission controls and the consequences thereof? This research develops a formal model of a hypothetical decision maker choosing emission controls within a risk-based regulatory framework. The model suggests that optimal controls on air toxics emissions vary depending on the spatial resolution chosen to regulate risks; net social costs are non-decreasing as one regulates at finer and finer spatial resolutions. An empirical application of the model using air toxic emission data for Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties in Florida demonstrates the sensitivity of optimal emissions to spatial resolution chosen for regulation. The research then investigates the equity implications of regulating at different spatial resolutions with regard to the spatial distribution of cancer risks. The empirical results indicate that regulation at finer spatial resolutions could involve a tradeoff between costs and equitable distribution of risks. For example, at a threshold cancer risk of 100 in a million, regulating at census block level resolution could be twice as costly as regulating at census tract resolution while reducing the maximum individual risk by almost half. Further, regulation at finer spatial resolutions might not address environmental injustice by itself unless such concerns are more explicitly incorporated into emission control decisions. Finally, this research shows that spatial resolution at which air toxics risks are regulated could matter in predictable ways even after taking into account the uncertainties that the decision maker faces.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

Shek Ming Hon. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-54). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Income Level and Environmental policy --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- International Trade and Environmental policy --- p.5 / Chapter 2.3 --- Other taxes and Environmental taxation --- p.7 / Chapter 2.4 --- Unemployment --- p.8 / Chapter 2.5 --- Tax and Tax Credits --- p.9 / Chapter 2.6 --- Foreigrt Investment and Environmental policy --- p.9 / Chapter 2.7 --- Pollution and Unemployment --- p.11 / Chapter 3 --- The Fr amework --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- Resource allocation --- p.21 / Chapter 3.2 --- National Welfare --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Optimal Capital Taxes --- p.23 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Optimal Environmental Taxes --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Jointly Optimal Policies --- p.29 / Chapter 3.3 --- Tariff Liberalization and Taxes --- p.33 / Chapter 4 --- Trade and pollution Policies under Investment Tax Credits --- p.35 / Chapter 4.1 --- Welfare Analysis on Capital Tax --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Welfare analysis on Capital Subsidy --- p.40 / Chapter 4.3 --- Policy in Simultaneous Change --- p.41 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Capital Tax --- p.41 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Capital subsidy --- p.45 / Chapter 5 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.48 / Chapter 6 --- Appendix --- p.55 / Chapter 6.1 --- Resource allocation --- p.55 / Chapter 6.2 --- Unemployment effect --- p.57 / Chapter 6.3 --- Cost and benefit of production of good X --- p.58 / Chapter 6.4 --- The 7 ° and s° schedules --- p.58

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This dissertation contains three papers that contribute to the theory of international trade, political economy, and trade and environmental protection. The first paper develops a model to examine the costs and benefits of trade in differentiated products. It focuses on how relative ability in exporting variety between two countries determines economic welfare in both countries. The results shed light on the question of why export-promotion programs in many countries aim not only to help their existing exporting firms export more, but also to help domestic firms become new exporting firms or enter new foreign markets. The paper also discusses the possibility of over-provision of export variety and raises some questions regarding the benefits of trade in differentiated products. The second paper suggests some coherent explanations for tariff reductions and substitution of non-tariff barriers for tariffs, taking into account both organized special interests and unorganized consumer interests. It focuses on how the presence of informed consumers affects the political equilibrium choice of trade policy - both the level of protection and the policy instrument. The paper identifies three effects that interact with each other as an incumbent government substitutes a NTB for a tariff and finds, among other things, that an increase in foreign competition will not cause the government to substitute NTBs for tariffs but a rise in the government's valuation of political contributions might. The third paper shows that small or financially constrained environmentalist groups can compete indirectly through changing public preferences over environmental quality, though they may be in a weak position relative to polluting industries in the direct competition for political influence. It is also shown, however, that in a small open economy where the output price is exogenously determined, the value of domestic persuasion falls and government environmental policies will be determined by direct political competition. Moreover, direct competition for political influence in the open economy becomes more intense because positions of different groups on environmental policy become more extreme. The analysis also shows that moving to free trade would increase a country's environmental protection as long as the median voter were not very 'green'.

Abstract available in pdf file.

Why do we want to value the environment? Environmental assets provide a flow of goods and services over time which benefit mankind. Valuing these services contributes towards their protection and enhancement, however many of these benefits cannot be valued in traditional markets and as such rely on non-market valuation techniques. One of these is contingent valuation (CV) which directly asks respondents whether they are willing to pay for an improvement in the good or service. This thesis seeks to explore methodological issues associated with this method by undertaking a CV survey to elicit willingness to pay (WTP) for a new type of flood defence (managed realignment) on the Tay Estuary, Scotland. One challenge for survey designers is to provide high quality, readily understandable information to mitigate bias in WTP estimates. This thesis contributes to the information provision literature by examining whether prior knowledge or new information has a greater effect on the WTP estimate when controlling for respondent experience and familiarity with the good. A field experiment was designed to test for respondent’s prior knowledge; allow for varying levels of information to be presented to respondents and identify information acquisition for each respondent. Specifically tested was the notion that respondents who learn the most about the good during the survey process will have a more robust WTP estimate. Results were mixed: a causal relationship between information provision and learning was established with respondents in the higher treatment groups scoring higher in the second quiz. However, there was no relationship identified between prior knowledge, information provision and WTP. Personal motivations were the strongest predictors of WTP: those who were most concerned about flood risk and who lived closest to the proposed flood defence were willing to pay the most. A second issue in CV is consequentiality. Carson and Groves (2007) argue that for a survey to produce meaningful information about respondent’s preferences the respondent must view their responses as potentially influencing the supply of the public good. This thesis seeks add to this relatively new literature by exploring the observable factors which may influence respondents perceived consequentiality; specifically the effects of familiarity and information. Respondents were asked to state how confident they were that the results of the survey would be used by policy makers on a Likert scale ranging from “very unconfident” through to “very confident”. Results conformed to the Carson and Groves knife edge result: consequential respondents had significantly different WTP distributions compared to inconsequential and unsure respondents and were willing to pay significantly more towards the scheme. Consequential respondents also conformed the theoretical considerations of construct validity whilst inconsequential respondents did not. Respondents with more prior knowledge also appeared to be more likely to perceive the survey as consequential, although this was not consistent across all treatment groups. There is a concern that WTP and consequentiality are endogenous: respondents who want the policy to go ahead may be more likely to state the survey is consequential and state a high WTP in the hope these responses combined contribute to the policy maker’s decision. From a policy perspective the high level of support for the new scheme was encouraging and in contrast to previous findings on preferences for managed realignment. From a flood risk management perspective a “miss-match” between actual and perceived flood risk was highlighted, with many respondents stating they were not at risk from flooding when they in fact were. This is potentially concerning as respondents may not be taking adequate steps to protect their home from future flood risks. Overall it is recognised that values derived from the CV survey form one small part of the planning process and while informative, the decision for a scheme to take place should not be based on these values alone.