Clifford S. Russell

Communicating Ecological Indicators to Decision Makers and the Public

Introduction EMAP’s Indicators A Region as a Case Study Development of Common-language Indicators Testing the Common-language Indicators From “values” to “valued aspects” Testing CLIs in relation to valued aspects of the environment Discussion Final thoughts Responses to this Article Acknowledgments Literature Cited Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3

National Culture and Environmental Sustainability: A Cross-National Analysis

This paper demonstrates the significance of culture in examining the relationship between income and the environment. Specifically, we examine the relationship among scores on the Environmental Sustainability Index of the World Economic Forum and the four dimensions of national culture proposed and measured by Hofstede (1983). We find that there are significant multidimensional interrelationships among the cultural and environmental sustainability measures. As an important application, we examine the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) phenomenon. Our finding suggests the limited applicability of the EKC notion when cultural variables are included in the model.

The choice of pollution control policy instruments in developing countries: arguments, evidence and suggestions

I. Background Concern about the environmental costs of economic development is now both widespread and intense. At one extreme, environmental deterioration, as through air and water pollution and deforestation, is seen as an unavoidable cost of industrialization, urbanization, and the growth of consumption (and the change in its composition) that are at the heart of “development” in the common use of the word. At the other, strongly influenced by the notion of “sustainability” that has been developed since the Bruntland Report (World Commission on Environment & Development, 1987), is the view that the environmental degradation being accepted by developing countries may well be enough to prevent them from continuing on a development path. Deterioration of natural resources and the health costs of pollution, may together overwhelm such growth momentum as has been generated by local and global policies and events. Somewhere in the middle of this polyphonic chorus of projection and advice lies the work on “environmental Kuznets curves”, cross-section phenomena that seem to promise the possibility; at least, that growth and environmental quality may be reconcilable in the long run (e.g.; Stern, 1998).

The national recreational fishing benefits of water pollution control

Results are presented of an effort to estimate the fresh water recreational fishing benefit derived from water pollution control efforts. Methodology is potentially applicable to other subcategories. (PSB)

Experimenting with multi-attribute utility survey methods in a multi-dimensional valuation problem

Abstract The use of willingness-to-pay (WTP) survey techniques based on multi-attribute utility (MAU) approaches has been recommended by some authors as a way to deal simultaneously with two difficulties that increasingly plague environmental valuation. The first of these is that, as valuation exercises come to involve less familiar and more subtle environmental effects, such as ecosystem management, lay respondents are less likely to have any idea, in advance, of the value they would attach to a described result. The second is that valuation questions may increasingly be about multi-dimensional effects (e.g. changes in ecosystem function) as opposed for example to changes in visibility from a given point. MAU has been asserted to allow the asking of simpler questions, even in the context of difficult subjects. And it is, as the name suggests, inherently multi-dimensional. This paper asks whether MAU techniques can be shown to ‘make a difference’ in the context of questions about preferences over, and valuation of differences between, alternative descriptions of a forest ecosystem. Making a difference is defined in terms of internal consistency of answers to preference and WTP questions involving three 5-attribute forest descriptions. The method involves first asking MAU-structured questions attribute-by-attribute. The responses to these questions allow researchers to infer each respondents preferences and WTP. Second, the same respondents are asked directly about their preferences and WTPs. The answer to the making-a-difference question, based largely on comparing the inferred and stated results, is not straightforward. Overall, the inferred results are good ‘predictors’ of what is stated. But the agreement is by no means perfect. And the individual differences are not explainable by the socio-economic characteristics of the individuals. Since the technique involves creating a long, somewhat tedious, and even apparently confusing series of tasks (though each task may itself be simple), it is by no means clear that the prescription, ‘use MAU techniques’, holds the same level of practical as of theoretical promise.

Contingent valuation in Korean environmental planning: A pilot application to the protection of drinking water quality in Seoul

This paper describes the application of the contingent valuation (CV) or willingness to pay (WTP) survey technique to a problem of public policy evaluation in Seoul, Korea. Matters of principal interest include: the definition of the problem and policy — protection of Seouls drinking water supply from disruption by “slugs” of contaminants in the source river (the Han); adjustments to standard CV techniques and assumptions required by the cultural and physical reality of Seoul; the representativeness of the spatially-drawn sample; estimation of the willingness to pay equation as a check on theoretical validity; and the policy implications of the results. The bottom line is asserted to be that CV may be especially valuable in countries such as Korea that have serious environmental problems and a history of not producing data that might be used in alternative (indirect) benefit estimation exercises. Further, it appears that if care is exercised in adjusting to local reality, the method can be made as successful as it has been in the U.S. and northern Europe.

Monitoring Point Sources of Pollution: Answers and More Questions from Statistical Quality Control

Abstract Discharges of pollutants to the environment are best regarded as stochastic, not deterministic. Thus the monitoring of point sources of discharge to determine whether a violation of a discharge standard has occurred can be viewed as a statistical quality control problem. This paper reviews the mechanics of designing an optimal statistical quality control scheme, and evaluates the applicability of such schemes in the environmental monitoring context. Complicating problems particular to environmental monitoring, such as the correct definition of a discharge standard, the measurement of the net benefits of discharge reduction, and the possibility of gaming behavior by the discharger inhibit the practical applicability of optimal statistical quality control programs as a solution to the monitoring problem.

Dealing with censored data from contingent valuation surveys: Symmetrically-trimmed least squares estimation

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a consistent and robust estimator when estimating a willingness to pay (WTP) equation using the censored data collected by a contingent valuation survey.1 Mitchell and Carsons payment card format [11; 12] strongly encourages the respondent to give a WTP value that is zero or greater, because payment cards do not normally include any negative values. But some respondents who answer with a zero WTP may in fact have negative WTP. As a simple example, if people are asked about improving a salt water ponds water quality to the point that shellfish taken from it would be edible, there may be individuals in the sample who use the pond for other recreational activities that would be hindered by the presence of people shellfishing. In addition, anyone who enjoys quietness around and on the pond also might want to be paid a certain amount to allow the ponds to be made shellfishable. In brief, not every public effect on net is a good to every affected person, but anticipating the varieties of reasons for negative valuation is at least difficult if not impossible. This was true in our research aimed

Searching for Evidence of Alternative Preferences, Public as Opposed to Private

Important economic thinkers such as Sen, Arrow and Harsanyi have argued for the existence of multiple preference orderings, allowing individuals to make choices, both when only private welfare is at stake and when the good of some collective is involved. Further, recent literature has shown that the presence of altruistic, as opposed to private, preferences may have important implications for environmental regulation and the optimal provision of public goods. However, only limited empirical work has been carried out to test for the presence of such preferences. This paper presents an empirical study, done in Denmark and the US, that supports the existence of such preferences. More precisely, the study finds that in both countries expressions of two types of altruistic preferences can be triggered in a predictable, controllable way by small framing changes in a questionnaire. It is suggested that the method used may itself be useful in further studies testing for other varieties of altruism.

A linear programming model of residuals management for integrated iron and steel production

Abstract This paper briefly describes a linear programming model designed to allow the exploration of questions surrounding the management of the environmental impacts of integrated iron and steel facilities. In particular, the model can show how plant discharges will change in the absence of specific legal restrictions or effluent charges, with such variables as product mix, steel-furnace type, casting technology, and the scrap-ore price ratio. In addition, the costs implied by placing restrictions on discharges of specific residuals (e.g., BOD, oil, suspended solids, particulates) may be estimated, or response to proposed effluent charges may be predicted.