Laura Taylor

This article provides an overview of the recent economics literature analyzing the effect of air pollution on health outcomes. We review the common approaches to measuring and modeling air pollution exposures and the epidemiological and biological literature on health outcomes that undergird federal air regulations in the United States. The article contrasts the methods used in the epidemiology literature with the causal inference framework used in economics. In particular, we review the common sources of estimation bias in epidemiological approaches that the economics literature has sought to overcome with research designs that take advantage of natural experiments. We review new promising research designs for estimating concentration-response functions and identify areas for further research.

Property value models are used to examine how utility-scale, ground-mount solar farms affect nearby agricultural land values. Results indicate that solar farms do not have direct positive or negative spillover effects on nearby agricultural land values. However, results also suggest that solar farm construction may indirectly affect agricultural land values by signaling the land’s suitability for future solar development. Specifically, results indicate that proximity of agricultural land to electric transmission lines may be positively valued after a solar farm is constructed nearby.

Reclaimed wastewater for outdoor irrigation purposes is an effective tool for conserving potable water sources and reducing effluent discharge from wastewater treatment facilities. Despite its “green” attributes, we find outdoor watering behavior that is consistent with households treating reclaimed water as a lower quality substitute to potable water for outdoor residential irrigation. Using unique microdata, we estimate the demand for outdoor water and find that after controlling for differences in irrigation water prices, households using reclaim water and households without automatic irrigation systems consume substantially less water in the landscape.

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a critical driver of estimated benefits for federal policies designed to improve human health, safety, and environmental exposures. The vast majority of empirical evidence on the magnitude of the VSL arises from hedonic wage models that have been plagued by measurement error and omitted variables. To address these limitations, this paper employs randomly assigned workplace safety inspections to instrument for plant-level risks in a quasi-experimental design. We provide credible causal evidence for the existence of compensating wages for fatality risks and estimate a VSL between $(2016)8 million and $(2016)10 million.

We conduct a choice-experiment with individuals that recently rented a vacation property along the North Carolina coastline to assess the impacts of a utility-scale wind farm on their rental decisions. Visualizations were presented to survey respondents that varied both the number of turbines and their proximity to shore. Results indicate that there is not a scenario for which respondents would be willing to pay more to rent a home with turbines in view, as compared to the baseline view with no turbines in sight. Further, there is a substantial portion of the survey population that would change their vacation destination if wind farms were placed within visual range of the beach. The rental discounts required to attract the segment of the survey population most amenable to viewing wind farms still indicate that rental value losses of up to 10% are possible if a utility-scale wind farm is placed within 8 miles of shore.

This research seeks to identify the impact of environmental contamination on residential housing prices separate from land use externalities associated with the contaminated sites. This is possible in an empirical model that considers the influence of uncontaminated commercial properties on home values concurrently with contaminated property influences. Our approach addresses an important source of omitted variable bias that has not been fully recognized in the literature, and it allows identification of stigma effects in a way not possible in past studies. We estimate difference-in-differences models that pool observations across a metro area and across time, as well as repeat sales models that rely on multiple transactions per home. Results indicate that environmental contamination more than doubles the negative influence commercial properties have on neighboring residential home values. Furthermore, we find little evidence of stigma effects once a contaminated site is remediated. The negative spillover effects associated with remediated contaminated sites are largely indistinguishable from the spillover effects from commercial properties with no known contamination.

This article provides an overview of the recent economics literature analyzing the effect of air pollution on health outcomes. We review the common approaches to measuring and modeling air pollution exposures and the epidemiological and biological literature on health outcomes that undergird federal air regulations in the United States. The article contrasts the methods used in the epidemiology literature with the causal inference framework used in economics. In particular, we review the common sources of estimation bias in epidemiological approaches that the economics literature has sought to overcome with research designs that take advantage of natural experiments. We review new promising research designs for estimating concentration-response functions and identify areas for further research.

Property value models are used to examine how utility-scale, ground-mount solar farms affect nearby agricultural land values. Results indicate that solar farms do not have direct positive or negative spillover effects on nearby agricultural land values. However, results also suggest that solar farm construction may indirectly affect agricultural land values by signaling the land’s suitability for future solar development. Specifically, results indicate that proximity of agricultural land to electric transmission lines may be positively valued after a solar farm is constructed nearby.

Reclaimed wastewater for outdoor irrigation purposes is an effective tool for conserving potable water sources and reducing effluent discharge from wastewater treatment facilities. Despite its “green” attributes, we find outdoor watering behavior that is consistent with households treating reclaimed water as a lower quality substitute to potable water for outdoor residential irrigation. Using unique microdata, we estimate the demand for outdoor water and find that after controlling for differences in irrigation water prices, households using reclaim water and households without automatic irrigation systems consume substantially less water in the landscape.

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a critical driver of estimated benefits for federal policies designed to improve human health, safety, and environmental exposures. The vast majority of empirical evidence on the magnitude of the VSL arises from hedonic wage models that have been plagued by measurement error and omitted variables. To address these limitations, this paper employs randomly assigned workplace safety inspections to instrument for plant-level risks in a quasi-experimental design. We provide credible causal evidence for the existence of compensating wages for fatality risks and estimate a VSL between $(2016)8 million and $(2016)10 million.

Benefit-cost analyses of environmental, health, and safety regulations often rely on an estimate of the “value of statistical life,” or VSL, to calculate the aggregate benefits of human mortality risk reductions in monetary terms. The VSL represents the marginal rate of substitution between mortality risk and money, and while well-understood by economists, to many non-economists, decision-makers, media professionals, and others, the term resembles obfuscated jargon bordering on the immoral. This paper describes a series of seven focus groups in which we applied a systematic approach for identifying and testing alternatives to the VSL terminology. Our objective was to identify a term that better communicates the VSL concept. Specifically, a list of 17 alternatives to the VSL term was developed and tested in focus groups that culminated in a formal ranking exercise. Using a round-robin tournament approach to analyze the data, and our qualitative judgments, we identify “value of reduced mortality risk” as the dominant replacement term among the alternatives tested.

We conduct a choice-experiment with individuals that recently rented a vacation property along the North Carolina coastline to assess the impacts of a utility-scale wind farm on their rental decisions. Visualizations were presented to survey respondents that varied both the number of turbines and their proximity to shore. Results indicate that there is not a scenario for which respondents would be willing to pay more to rent a home with turbines in view, as compared to the baseline view with no turbines in sight. Further, there is a substantial portion of the survey population that would change their vacation destination if wind farms were placed within visual range of the beach. The rental discounts required to attract the segment of the survey population most amenable to viewing wind farms still indicate that rental value losses of up to 10% are possible if a utility-scale wind farm is placed within 8 miles of shore.

This research seeks to identify the impact of environmental contamination on residential housing prices separate from land use externalities associated with the contaminated sites. This is possible in an empirical model that considers the influence of uncontaminated commercial properties on home values concurrently with contaminated property influences. Our approach addresses an important source of omitted variable bias that has not been fully recognized in the literature, and it allows identification of stigma effects in a way not possible in past studies. We estimate difference-in-differences models that pool observations across a metro area and across time, as well as repeat sales models that rely on multiple transactions per home. Results indicate that environmental contamination more than doubles the negative influence commercial properties have on neighboring residential home values. Furthermore, we find little evidence of stigma effects once a contaminated site is remediated. The negative spillover effects associated with remediated contaminated sites are largely indistinguishable from the spillover effects from commercial properties with no known contamination.