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On Balance: Two quick fix solutions to baseline estimation challenges: good enough for practical analysis?

Since 2010, I have been a practitioner of practical benefit-cost analysis at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), working with colleagues to inform policymakers and stakeholders about the likely impacts of proposed federal environmental regulations. I would like to examine a key issue in developing estimates of the benefits and costs of these regulations: the development of the baseline in a benefit-cost analysis.

In recent years, a number of articles in the Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis have addressed the question of how best to conduct—and evaluate—a regulatory benefit-cost analysis. Two of these subsequently resulted in posts to On BalanceConsumers Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis, by Susan Dudley, and Two Decades of Benefits and Costs: Promise and Pitfalls, by Clark Nardinelli. Another article by Richard Morganstern, Retrospective Analysis of U.S. Federal Environmental Regulation, examines various estimates for environmental rules and analyzes issues relevant to developing credible baselines.

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On Balance: Using Cost-Benefit Analysis to Make the World a Better Place

If you had billions of dollars to make the world a better place, and could spend it however you wanted, how would you maximize your impact? This is not just a thought experiment, but a daily concern for the world’s governments, philanthropists, and multilateral institutions. Since 2004, Copenhagen Consensus has been using cost-benefit analysis to help decision makers identify highly effective interventions. While most cost-benefit analysis seeks the best solution for a single problem, Copenhagen Consensus takes a wider view, looking across all major domains for policies that improve social welfare.

 

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On Balance: Nudging Electricity Consumption

Nudges are all the rage in behavioral economics and public policy applications around the world because of their potential for doing good at little or no cost. Economists, including Kip Viscusi (2018), have begun examining previously unexplored sides of nudges including some involving energy consumption. An often employed nudge in the area of conserving energy and reducing pollution is the home energy report, where after a home energy survey a household receives a message, usually monthly, that compares its energy use to that of neighbors and suggests ways to reduce electric or gas use and, in turn, its carbon footprint. Each month the consuming unit can also see how its energy use compares to its own past usage too. The subtleties of the benefits of home energy surveys and home energy reports is the subject of a recent article, "Differential and Distributional Effects of Energy Efficiency Surveys: Evidence from Electricity Consumption," available open access at the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis.

 

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On Balance: Review of "Cost Benefit Analysis" by Per Olov Johansson and Bengt Kristrom

Cambridge Elements has created a series on Public Economics, edited by Robin Boadway, Frank Cowell and Massimo Florio. This is part of a major project by Cambridge University Press, which is intended to provide peer-reviewed analytical surveys and frontier topics in all the disciplines. We happily note that the first published “Element” in this series is Cost Benefit Analysis, by Per-Olov Johansson and Bengt Kriström (2018). Cost-Benefit Analysis is available as a free download for a limited time, and is for sale (relatively inexpensively) in print at Cambridge and at online booksellers, such as Barnes and Noble. The Element is just above eighty pages (plus a short technical annex and a long list of references).

Encompassing the whole of Cost-Benefit Analysis in such a reduced volume is a tour de force, as acknowledged by the authors in the prologue. The aim is to provide a comprehensive and non-technical state of the art overview of Cost-Benefit Analysis, including both basic classical results and some new frontiers. It has been successfully reached.

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On Balance: Executive Order 12866 and the Durability of Core Regulatory Principles

On September 24, 2018, experts gathered at the George Washington University (GW) to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Executive Order (E.O.) 12866Regulatory Planning and Review—and discuss the implications of its provisions and future prospects. The Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (SBCA) cosponsored the event with the GW Regulatory Studies CenterABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. (Additional information on the event, including commentaries by the speakers, and videos when they become available, are posted on the GW website.)

 

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On Balance: Two Decades of Benefits and Costs: Promise and Pitfalls

A new article in the Fall Issue of the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis (JBCA),  “Some Pitfalls of Practical Benefit-Cost Analysis,”  describes common pitfalls that well-meaning analysts fall into. Over the past 23 years I have worked on and supervised hundreds of benefit-cost analyses. Most of these analyses have dealt with public health regulations proposed by the Food and Drug Administration, although on occasion I have reviewed analyses from other government agencies and academia. I’ve seen these pitfalls occur many times and at one time or another I’ve been guilty of most of them.

 

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On Balance: Reflecting on the Longevity of Executive Order 12866 and Looking to the Future

September 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of Executive Order (EO) 12866, which requires U.S. federal agencies, “in deciding whether and how to regulate, [to] assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the alternative of not regulating.” It further states that, “in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, agencies should select those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other advantages; distributive impacts; and equity), unless a statute requires another regulatory approach.”

Since it was signed on September 30, 1993, four different presidents with markedly diverse regulatory philosophies have relied on EO12866 to guide both the procedures and analytical practices for developing new regulations.

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On Balance: Reporting back: the World Congress for Environmental and Resource Economists in Gothenburg, Sweden

Gothenburg, Sweden hosted the 2018 World Congress for Environmental and Resource Economists, which met from June 25-29, 2018. The five-day conference was held at the School of Business, Economics, and Law, which is part of the University of Gothenburg. The conference was made possible by the joint effort of three major economics associations: the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), the East Asian AERE (EAAERE), and the European AERE (EAERE).

 

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On Balance: Review of “Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis” by Scott Farrow

As the feasibility of using benefit-cost analysis (BCA) as a practical tool of policy analysis has increased, so too has the need for materials to aid those of us who are called upon to teach BCA. Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis: Tools of the Trade, edited by Scott Farrow (Professor of Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County), is a distinctive and welcome addition to the collection of such materials.

 

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On Balance: Retrospective Analyses Are Hard: A Cautionary Tale

Under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was required to establish standards limiting air toxics emissions from industrial plants. An article in the latest issue of the Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis  (JBCA)“Retrospective Analyses Are Hard: A Cautionary Tale from EPA's Air Toxics Regulations,” takes a retrospective look at 5 of the largest rules issued by EPA in the initial round of air toxics rulemaking over the period 1995 to 2000. For the rules examined, our estimates suggest mixed results, in terms of the reductions in emissions that were achieved. However, our efforts during the project also reinforce the difficulty of obtaining adequate plant emissions data, even where there is an established database--in this case, the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI).

 

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On Balance: Taking Benefit-Cost Analysis on the Road

One of the reasons I look forward each year to the annual conference of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis is connecting with fellow economists who have chosen careers in my specialty, which has evolved to be regulatory policy and analysis. I enjoy sharing and hearing everyone’s war stories and appreciate the advice I receive from those who have “been there, done that” and hope that I add value when I offer the same to new economists working to influence the policy process.

 

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On Balance: Communicating about Benefit-Cost Analysis

It is challenging to explain benefit-cost analysis (BCA) to the general public or to members of other professions lacking sufficient knowledge of—and appreciation for—applied microeconomics. This post discusses the nature of this challenge, and raises the question: should the SBCA develop a more concerted communications strategy to better explain the fundamental concepts of the discipline and their practical application?

 

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On Balance: Review of “Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society” by W. Kip Viscusi

Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society  (Princeton University Press, 2018) is a tour de force. It provides an entertaining, accessible account of the modern approach to valuing mortality risk. In non-technical prose, it covers the major aspects of the approach and how it should be applied to social decisions.  It shows how US regulatory agencies’ adoption of the ‘value per statistical life’ (VSL) to replace the ‘cost of death’ (i.e., human capital) approach has led to more-protective regulation and argues the VSL approach should be extended beyond regulation, to private-sector decisions about product design and to government sanctions for regulatory violations. It also finds that the values used outside the US are typically far too small; revising these upward would lead to more-protective and more-appropriate regulation in other countries.

 

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On Balance: Report from the SBCA President on the 2018 Annual Conference and The Plenary Presentation by Tomas Philipson

It was my honor to preside over the 2018 Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (SBCA) Conference held March 14 – 16 at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. I am happy to report that by all indications it was another successful conference. We had 319 total registrants from 19 countries across 5 continents. U.S. participants represented 31 states and D.C. Half of all participants were affiliated with the U.S. federal government. The next largest group were academics (almost one-third); other attendees were from the private sector or from state and international government agencies. The three pre-conference professional development workshops were well attended and also drew a mix of participants from federal, state, and international agencies, as well as academics.

 

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On Balance: Application of BCA in Europe

Despite the obvious attraction of Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) for policy evaluation, its implementation rate varies across countries and sectors. Although the concept of BCA can be traced back to European thinkers, it was first applied in the United States. The evaluation by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ of the U.S. Flood Control Act of 1936 is often regarded as the first use of BCA, but President Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12291 issued in 1981 provided considerable impetus to its use in the United States. Although perceptions of BCA as anti-regulatory caused some adversaries of BCA to argue for its elimination in policy making, BCA is now viewed also as a tool to promote regulation.

 

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On Balance: Don't Undervalue Life

Proper application of the value of a statistical life (VSL) is essential to preventing the systematic undervaluation of life throughout the world. The values used by U.S. federal agencies to monetize prospective risk reductions formerly were too low but have increased over time and are now in a range consistent with the economic literature. However, the values agencies assign to fatalities in setting regulatory sanctions are extremely low—often a fraction of the current estimates for VSL estimates used in regulatory contexts. Further, other countries still monetize risk reductions using techniques that undervalue life relative to VSL estimates. 

 

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On Balance: Teachable Moments in Benefit-Cost Analysis: From Obama to Trump

As a teacher of benefit-cost analysis (BCA), the review by the current administration of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), a cornerstone of the Obama era climate change regulations, presents what we often call “teachable moments.” Specifically, how could the CPP produce benefits that exceed costs in the Obama administration and then costs that exceed benefits in the Trump administration? 

 

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On Balance: Bringing Benefit-Cost Analysis to Policing Practices

The Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis and the Policing Project at New York University School of Law teamed up to host a symposium on the use of benefit-cost analysis in a domain in which it is all too absent: policing. (Policing tends to have many definitions, but generally we mean it here to refer to any use of force or surveillance of the populace for reasons of achieving public safety.) The goal of this Symposium on Benefit-Cost Analysis of Policing Practices, and the conference that preceded it, is to interest more scholars in working in this vital field, and to identify and begin to tackle some of the methodological challenges the field faces.

 

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