Consulta: creatorFacets:"Walls,   Margaret"
Registros recuperados: 19
Data/hora: 11/06/2024 14:59:24

The Organization of Local Solid Waste and Recycling Markets: Public and Private Provision of Services
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; MacAuley,   Molly K.; Anderson,   Soren T.
We study determinants of market organization of local public services by an empirical examination of one of the most visible municipal services, residential waste management. Using a multinomial logit model and data for 1,000 U.S. communities, we explore the effect of political influence, voter ideology, environmental constraints, production costs (i.e., "economies of density"), and contracting transaction costs on a community's choice of market arrangement for waste collection and recycling. We find that cost factors are a significant determinant of service delivery method. In contrast, few of the political variables are statistically significant. These results hold for our models of both waste and recycling, lending further evidence to the conclusion...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Market organization; Solid waste management; State and local government; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q20; H70.
Ano: 2003
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10892

Upstream Pollution, Downstream Waste Disposal, and the Design of Comprehensive Environmental Policies
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; Palmer,   Karen L.
Many environmentalists and policymakers are shifting their focus from media-specific pollution problems to product-specific, life-cycle environmental problems. In this paper, we develop a model of production and consumption that incorporates life-cycle environmental externalities-specifically, an upstream manufacturing byproduct, air or water pollution from manufacturing, and downstream solid waste disposal. We then use the model to derive optimal government policies to address all three externalities. We assume throughout that a Pigovian tax on waste disposal is precluded because of the potential for illegal dumping. We then examine four cases: one in which Pigovian taxes on the upstream externalities are feasible, one in which such taxes are infeasible,...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Life-cycle externalities; Solid waste; Deposit-refund; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q28.
Ano: 2000
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10837

Extended Product Responsibility: An Economic Assessment of Alternative Policies
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Palmer,   Karen L.; Walls,   Margaret.
Extended Product Responsibility embodies the notion that agents along a product chain should share responsibility for the life-cycle environmental impacts of the product, including those associated with ultimate disposal. Extended Producer Responsibility is a narrower concept which places responsibility on producers and focuses primarily on post-consumer waste disposal. Manufacturer "take-back" requirements are the policy lever most often associated with Extended Producer Responsibility. In this paper, we discuss alternative incentive-based policies that are consistent with the objectives of Extended Product and Producer Responsibility. We argue that an upstream combined product tax and recycling subsidy (UCTS) is generally more cost-effective and imposes...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Solid waste; Extended product responsibility; Recycling; Unit pricing; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q2; H2.
Ano: 1999
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10830

Distributional Impacts of an Environmental Tax Shift: The Case of Motor Vehicle Emissions Taxes
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; Hanson,   Jean.
One of the most common criticisms of pollution taxes is that they are often believed to be inequitable -- i.e., low income households are thought to be disproportionately harmed. In this paper, we assess the distributional impacts of three taxes aimed at reducing emissions from motor vehicles: (i) a tax on total annual emissions, (ii) a tax on emissions rates (in grams per mile), and (iii) a tax on annual miles traveled. We use two alternative measures of economic well-being, annual household income and a constructed measure of lifetime income. We find that all three fees look regressive, both on the basis of annual and lifetime income - though much less so on a lifetime income basis. However, if one of these fees is used to substitute for existing vehicle...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Motor vehicle emissions; Tax incidence; Lifetime income; Political Economy; H22; H23.
Ano: 1996
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10895

How Well Can Markets for Development Rights Work? Evaluating a Farmland Preservation Program
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: McConnell,   Virginia D.; Kopits,   Elizabeth; Walls,   Margaret.
Transferable development rights (TDRs) can be used as a local planning tool to preserve land for particular uses. TDRs separate ownership of the right to develop land from ownership of the land itself, creating a market in which the development rights can be bought and sold. Landowners who sell TDRs permanently preserve their land in an undeveloped state; those TDRs are then used to increase the density of development elsewhere. In this paper, we evaluate a TDR program for preserving farmland in Calvert County, Maryland. We evaluate the performance of the TDR market over the 23-year life of the program by looking at the number of transactions and TDRs sold and the level and dispersion of prices over time. We also look closely at the influence of the county...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Land use; Farmland preservation; Development rights; Land Economics/Use; Q15; Q24; R140.
Ano: 2003
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10659

The Incidence of Pollution Control Policies
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Parry,   Ian W.H.; Sigman,   Hilary; Walls,   Margaret; Williams,   Roberton C., III.
This paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on the household distribution of the costs and benefits of pollution control policies, and ways of integrating distributional issues into environmental cost-benefit analysis. Most studies find that policy costs fall disproportionately on poorer groups, though this is less pronounced when lifetime income is used, and policies affect prices of inputs used pervasively across the economy. The policy instrument itself is also critical; freely allocated emission permits may hurt the poor the most, as they transfer income to shareholders via scarcity rents created by higher prices, while emissions taxes offer opportunities for progressive revenue recycling. And although low-income households appear to bear a...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Distributional incidence; Emissions taxes; Tradable permits; Environmental benefits; Distributional weights; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q52; Q58; H22.
Ano: 2005
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10651

Farmland Preservation and Residential Density: Can Development Rights Markets Affect Land Use?
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: McConnell,   Virginia D.; Kopits,   Elizabeth; Walls,   Margaret.
This paper examines transferable development rights (TDRs) policies as a way to preserve farmland and change the density of development. Characteristics of TDR markets are described, including why they might promote efficiency, and the difficulties that arise in implementing them. Evidence from an established TDR program in Calvert County, Maryland, is used to assess the potential for TDRs to influence subdivision density, and to achieve local land preservation goals. The Calvert program has succeeded in creating an active and stable TDR market, and has therefore preserved a large amount of farmland in the region. But we find that the demand for additional density permitted with TDRs occurs mostly in rural areas and not in the higher density town centers...
Tipo: Journal Article
Palavras-chave: Land preservation; Development; Markets; Density; Land Economics/Use.
Ano: 2005
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10240

How Local Governments Structure Contracts with Private Firms: Economic Theory and Evidence on Solid Waste and Recycling Contracts
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret.
Solid waste management services are contracted out to private firms in many U.S. communities. Household waste collection, transport, and disposal are relatively straightforward services to define within the terms of a contract. The addition of recycling, however, significantly complicates matters. How should contracts be structured to provide incentives for recycling? Who should own key facilities, such as recyclable materials processing facilities? Should a separate contract for processing and sale of materials be used, or should these services be provided by government employees or purely private markets? These questions are addressed in this study using the principal-agent framework and the theory of incomplete contracts in economics. I explain stylized...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Incentive contracts; Asset specificity; Principal-agent models; Waste collection; Recycling; Environmental Economics and Policy; L33; L14; Q2.
Ano: 2003
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10707

What Have We Learned from a Recent Survey of Teleworkers? Evaluating the 2002 SCAG Survey
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Safirova,   Elena; Walls,   Margaret.
In this paper, we analyze the 2002 Telework Survey conducted by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). Being a relatively recent and large dataset, the survey captures the current state of telecommuting, covering the entire region with a population of 17 million residents, and is not biased by telecommuting policies of particular employees. The survey also distinguishes telecommuters from home-based business owners and therefore provides a more accurate account of the number of telecommuters. Our analysis focuses on the role of demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, ethnicity, household income, presence of children in the household and household size affect the workers' propensity to telecommute. We also look into the...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Telecommuting; SCAG survey; Labor and Human Capital; R4; Q53; Q58.
Ano: 2004
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10866

Telecommuting and Emissions Reductions: Evaluating Results from the ecommute Program
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; Nelson,   Peter.
In 1999 Congress passed the National Air Quality and Telecommuting Act. This Act established pilot telecommuting programs in five major U.S. metropolitan areas with the express purpose of studying the feasibility of addressing air quality concerns through telecommuting. This study provides the first analysis of data from the "ecommute" program. Using two-and-one-half years of data, we look at telecommuting frequency, mode choice, and emissions reductions. We also look at reporting behavior, dropout rates, and other information to assess the program's performance. We analyze results by city- Denver, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia are the five pilot cities. And finally, we use the program's emissions reduction findings to calculate...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Telecommuting; Mode choice; Air quality; Emissions; Labor and Human Capital; R4; Q53; Q58.
Ano: 2004
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10628

Policies to Encourage Recycling and "Design for Environment": What to Do When Markets Are Missing
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Calcott,   Paul; Walls,   Margaret.
Several studies have shown the efficiency of both a Pigovian tax on waste disposal and a deposit-refund instrument, that is a combined output tax and recycling subsidy. The efficiency of these instruments, however, critically depends on households being paid for recycling. In reality, although most households have access to curbside recycling services, they are not paid for the items they set out at the curb. All items placed in a recycling bin are thus of equal value to a household, and there is no incentive for producers to make their products any more recyclable than what is necessary to be eligible for the bin. This paper characterizes the constrained (second-best) optimum that exists with the missing recycling market and solves for a modified...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Solid waste; Regulatory policy; Regulatory design; Environmental Economics and Policy; H21; Q28.
Ano: 2000
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10567

Who's in the Driver's Seat? Mobile Source Policy in the U.S. Federal System
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Harrington,   Winston; McConnell,   Virginia D.; Walls,   Margaret.
Regulation of mobile source emissions in the US has evolved as a complex combination of central government and decentralized authority. The central government required uniform new car emissions standards in the 1970 Clean Air Act, but gave states the power to meet ambient air quality standards however they saw fit, including various regulations on mobile sources. The 1990 Amendments to the Act strengthened the Federal role in some ways, by requiring tighter new car standards and more specific requirements for fuels and for vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance, but at the same time left states with a great deal of latitude to meet ambient standards and took greater recognition of regional variation in environmental problems. We examine the role of...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Mobile source; Federalism; Public Economics; Q25; Q28.
Ano: 1996
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10636

Incentive-Based Land Use Policies and Water Quality in the Chesapeake Bay
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; McConnell,   Virginia D.
The activities conducted on land surrounding the Chesapeake Bay directly affect pollution levels in the Bay, and they do so in complex and varied ways. Policy attention has been focused, for the most part, on modifying these activities within a particular land use category but not on wholesale changes in land use. For example, farmers are encouraged to use "best management practices" (BMPs) that focus on fertilizer use, crop covers, and the like; residential and commercial developers are encouraged to manage stormwater runoff; and wastewater treatment plants are required to meet technology-based standards. But the amount of land in urbanized uses relative to the amount in farming, forestry, and open space has not been given the attention it deserves. In...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Development impact fees; Nonpoint source pollution; Purchase of development rights; Transferable development rights; Land Economics/Use; Q53; Q58; R14.
Ano: 2004
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10843

The Role of Economics in Extended Producer Responsibility: Making Policy Choices and Setting Policy Goals
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) embodies the notion that producers should be made physically or financially responsible for the environmental impacts their products have at the end of product life. The EPR concept has taken hold in Europe and is garnering wide interest in the United States, where a variant known as "shared product responsibility" or "product stewardship" is usually the preferred approach. There are several policy instruments that are consistent with EPR-product take-back mandates, advance disposal fees, deposit-refunds, recycled content standards, and more. The EPR concept itself, however, provides little guidance about which of these instruments might be appropriate under particular conditions and for particular products. Moreover,...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: EPR; Recycling; Design for environment; Agricultural and Food Policy; Q2; H2.
Ano: 2003
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10855

A Review of the Literature on Telecommuting and Its Implications for Vehicle Travel and Emissions
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Walls,   Margaret; Safirova,   Elena.
In this paper, we review 20 relatively recent empirical studies of telecommuting, all of which focus on the trip reduction perspective. The studies include earlier ones with smaller datasets, such as some pilot studies of individual employers, and more recent studies based on broader surveys of both telecommuters and nontelecommuters. We focus on the results of the studies with respect to participation and frequency of telecommuting, the effects on vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) and trips, and in some cases, the impacts on emissions and air quality. Although there does not seem to be a consensus, there is a predominant view that certain factors increase both the likelihood of telecommuting and the frequency of telecommuting. These factors are having children...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Telecommuting; Mode choice; Air quality; Emissions; Labor and Human Capital; R4; Q53; Q58.
Ano: 2004
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10492

Zoning, TDRs, and the Density of Development
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: McConnell,   Virginia D.; Walls,   Margaret; Kopits,   Elizabeth.
Many communities on the urban fringe are implementing a range of policies to preserve farmland and open space, cluster residential development, and guide development to areas with existing infrastructure. These efforts are an attempt to control overall growth and the concomitant loss in open space and also to counter a trend toward the so-called large lot development that often takes place in these areas. Planners have argued that policies to manage density are the most important local policy focus for urban areas in the coming years. It is possible that large lot development and sprawl are themselves the result of government policy. Most local governments use zoning to establish minimum acreage requirements for each residential dwelling unit; in ex-urban...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Housing density; Zoning; Transferable development rights; Public Economics; R14; R15; R52.
Ano: 2005
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10490

Waste, Recycling, and "Design for Environment": Roles for Markets and Policy Instruments
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Calcott,   Paul; Walls,   Margaret.
Several studies that have solved for optimal solid waste policy instruments have suggested that transaction costs may often prevent the working of recycling markets. In this paper, we explicitly incorporate such costs into a general equilibrium model of production, consumption, recycling, and disposal. Specifically, we assume that consumers have access to both recycling without payment and recycling with payment but that the latter option comes with transaction costs. Producers choose material and nonmaterial inputs to produce a consumer product, and they also choose design attributes of that product-its weight and degree of recyclability. We find that the policy instruments that yield a social optimum in this setting need to vary with the degree of...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Dfe; Deposit-refund; Disposal fee; Constrained optimum; Environmental Economics and Policy; H21; Q28.
Ano: 2002
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10900

The Cost of Reducing Municipal Solid Waste
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Palmer,   Karen L.; Sigman,   Hilary; Walls,   Margaret.
This paper explores public policies for reduction of municipal solid waste. We parameterize a simple model of waste disposal using supply and demand elasticities from the economics literature and 1990 prices and quantities of recyclable and recycled materials. Using this model, we calculate the waste reduction in response to three public policies: (i) deposit/ refunds, (ii) advance disposal fees, and (iii) recycling subsidies. The results illustrate the effects of the three policies on source reduction and recycling of five recyclable materials that comprise 56 percent of municipal solid waste: aluminum, glass, paper, plastic, and steel. The calculated responses provide information about the cost of reducing municipal solid waste through various policies....
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: Solid waste; Deposit/refund; Recycling subsidy; Secondary materials; Environmental Economics and Policy; Q2; H2.
Ano: 1996
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10898

Making Markets for Development Rights Work: What Determines Demand?
Provedor de dados: 31
Autores: Kopits,   Elizabeth; McConnell,   Virginia D.; Walls,   Margaret.
Many economists see current land use patterns as inefficient due to various market failures, and planners argue that current patterns do not follow sound planning practice. One policy of interest to both groups is transferable development rights (TDR). TDRs allow the development rights from land that is preserved in an undeveloped state to be transferred to other areas where development can be made denser. This paper addresses one of the greatest difficulties TDR programs face-insufficient demand. We develop a simple theoretical model and estimate a TDR demand function using data from Calvert County, Maryland, one of the only regions where data on individual sales are available. We find that baseline zoning is a critical determinant of TDR demand- demand...
Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper
Palavras-chave: TDRs; Density; Zoning; Subdivisions; International Development; R14; R52; R21.
Ano: 2005
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/10880