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This study conducts a meta-analysis and benefit transfer of the value of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay estuary to estimate the property value impacts of pollution reduction policies. Estimates of the value of water clarity are derived from separate hedonic property value analyses of 14 counties bordering the Bay. The meta-analysis allows us to: (1) estimate the average effect of water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay, (2) investigate heterogeneity of effects across counties based on socioeconomic and ecological factors, (3) evaluate different measures of water clarity used in the original hedonic equations, and (4) transfer the values to Bayfront counties in nearby jurisdictions to estimate the property value impacts of the total maximum daily load (TMDL), a policy to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution entering the Bay that is expected to improve water clarity and ecological health. We also investigate the in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power of different transfer strategies and find that a simpler unit value transfer can outperform more complex function transfers. We estimate that aggregate near-waterfront property values could increase by roughly $400–$700 million in response to water clarity improvements from the TMDL.

Many public water systems are struggling to locate and replace lead pipes that distribute drinking water across the United States. This study investigates factors associated with customer participation in a voluntary lead service line (LSL) inspection and replacement program. It also uses quasi-experimental and experimental methods to evaluate the causal impacts of two grant programs that subsidized homeowner replacement costs on LSL program participation. LSLs were more prevalent in areas with a higher concentration of older housing stock, Black and Hispanic residents, renters, and lower property values. Owner-occupied and higher valued properties were more likely to participate in the LSL program. Results from the two grant program evaluations suggest that subsidies for low-income homeowners to cover LSL replacement costs can significantly boost participation, but only when the programs are well publicized and easy to access. Even then, there was still significant non-participation among properties with confirmed LSLs.

Coastal communities are facing the dual threat of increasing sea level rise (SLR) and swelling populations, causing challenging policy problems. To help inform policy makers, this paper explores the property price impact of structures that help protect against SLR, using a novel and spatially explicit dataset of coastal features. Results indicate that adaptation structures can have a significant positive impact on waterfront home prices, with the most vulnerable homes seeing the largest impacts. The Chesapeake Bay is facing increasing pressure from SLR, and this is one of the first papers to report that local property markets are incorporating that threat.

Leaded fuel used by piston-engine aircraft is the largest source of airborne lead emissions in the United States. Previous studies have found higher blood lead levels in children living near airports where leaded aviation fuel is used. However, little is known about the health effects on adults. This study is the first to examine the association between exposure to aircraft operations that use leaded aviation fuel and adult cardiovascular mortality. We estimated the association between annual piston-engine air traffic and cardiovascular mortality among adults age 65 and older near 40 North Carolina airports during 2000 to 2017. We used several strategies to minimize the potential for bias due to omitted variables and confounding from other health hazards at airports, including coarsened exact matching, location-specific intercepts, and adjustment for jet-engine and other air traffic that does not use leaded fuel. Our findings are mixed but suggestive of adverse effects. We found higher rates of cardiovascular mortality within a few kilometers downwind of single- and multi-runway airports, though these results are not always statistically significant. We also found significantly higher cardiovascular mortality rates within a few kilometers and downwind of single-runway airports in years with more piston-engine air traffic. We did not consistently find a statistically significant association between cardiovascular mortality rates and piston-engine air traffic near multi-runway airports, where there was greater uncertainty in our measure of the distance between populations and aviation exposures. These results suggest that (i) reducing lead emissions from aviation could yield health benefits for adults, and (ii) more refined data are needed to obtain more precise estimates of these benefits. Subject Areas: Toxic Substances, Health, Epidemiology, Air Pollution, Ambient Air Quality. JEL codes: Q53, I18.

The data center industry is one of the fastest growing energy users in the USA. While the industry has improved its energy efficiency over the past decade, engineering analyses suggest that ample opportunities remain to reduce energy use that would save firms money. This study explores whether and why data centers might limit investment in energy efficiency. Given the scarcity of empirical data in this context, we conducted focus groups and interviews with data center managers to elicit information about factors affecting their investments and used content analysis to qualitatively evaluate the results. Split incentives between departments within companies and between colocation data centers and their tenants, imperfect information about the performance of new technologies, and tradeoffs with data center reliability were the most pervasive factors discussed by participants. While we find some evidence that market failure explanations such as split incentives and imperfect information had a limited role in slowing adoption for participants, rival explanations such as the cost of acquiring context-specific information, and opportunity costs associated with alternate uses of funds or highly valued attributes played a larger role in slowing investment in energy efficiency.

This study examines the drivers of land use in a shifting cultivation system with forest fallow. Forest fallow provides on-farm soil quality benefits, local hydrological regulation, and global public goods. An optimal control model demonstrates that farmers have an incentive to fallow less than is socially optimal, though market failures limiting crop production can have a countervailing effect by encouraging fallow. An econometric model estimated using data from the Brazilian Amazon suggests that fallowing does not result from internalization of local fallow services but instead is associated with poor market access and labor and liquidity constraints.

Criticisms of the Green Revolution have focused on environmental and human health problems associated with pesticides. Pesticides may also have adverse effects on wild fish and other aquatic animals in rice paddies that supply an additional source of food and income for some farm households and provide natural pest control. We use survey data from the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam to estimate the impact of pesticides on fish harvests from rice fields. The results confirm findings of ecological studies that pesticide use harms fish populations. However, fish harvest losses are small enough that ignoring them is likely economically rational.

According to engineering analyses, energy-intensive commercial buildings have ample opportunities to reduce energy use while saving money, but many seemingly profitable strategies go unadopted. This study explores potential barriers to energy- and refrigerant-reducing investments in supermarket refrigeration. While supermarkets are large energy users, energy and refrigerant account for a relatively small proportion of expenditures. However, due to the intensely competitive nature of the industry, reducing refrigeration costs could have a sizable impact on supermarkets’ bottom lines. Given the scarcity of empirical data in this context, we conducted focus groups and interviews with U.S. supermarket representatives to elicit information about potential barriers to investment and used content analysis to qualitatively evaluate results. Participant statements suggest that the rate at which they adopt specific energy-reducing refrigeration technologies and practices correlates fairly well with estimates of expected payback. Uncertainty and imperfect information about the performance of new technologies, high opportunity costs of capital, and tradeoffs with other valued system attributes such as reliability and customer appeal were the most pervasive potential barriers discussed by participants, although split incentives between firms and contractors or employees also played a role for some firms. Our assessment is that these factors have moderately limited or slowed investments in energy-saving refrigeration technologies for many firms; only in the cases of uncertainty/imperfect information and split incentives between firms and contractors or employees are these barriers potentially indicative of market failures. In addition, in several instances we identify ways in which analysts could improve engineering-based net present value calculations to make them more consistent with actual firm decisions.

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay is well below half of its historic levels, largely due to excessive nutrient and sediment loads degrading water quality. SAV provides important ecosystem functions, many of which are beneficial to local residents. To understand the implicit value residents place on SAV and the ecosystem services it provides, we undertake a hedonic property value study using residential transactions in 11 Maryland counties adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay. These data are matched to high-resolution maps of SAV coverage. We pose a quasi-experimental comparison and examine how the prices of homes near the waterfront vary with the presence of SAV. On average, waterfront and near-waterfront homes within 200 meters of the shore sell at about a 6.5% premium when SAV is present. Applying these estimates to the 185,000-acre SAV attainment goal suggests total property value gains on the order of $436 million.

We examine the implications of health-seeking behavior on access to quality health care using a unique dataset that combines a household survey from rural Tanzania with the location and quality of all health facilities available to households. Patients do not always visit the nearest facility, but choose from among multiple facilities, improving the quality of care they receive by bypassing low quality facilities. Recognizing this behavior alters the projected benefits to health interventions, reducing the value of focusing on the staff qualifications and increasing the value of focusing on travel time and the motivation of current staff.