IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v16y2000i3p281-302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are The Costs of Proposed Environmental Regulations Overestimated? Evidence from the CFC Phaseout

Author

Listed:
  • James Hammitt

Abstract

Benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness analysis are often advocated fordecision making about environmental, health, and safety regulations, butthere has been little research evaluating the accuracy of prospectiveestimates of regulatory costs and benefits. Prospective estimates of themarginal cost of limiting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) consumption in theUnited States, published shortly before and after the September 1987adoption of the Montreal Protocol, are compared with retrospectiveestimates based on realized market prices. Estimates published beforeinternational regulations were adopted (in May 1986) substantiallyoverestimate the marginal costs of limiting CFC-11 and CFC-12consumption but modestly underestimate the costs of limiting CFC-113consumption. In contrast, estimates published shortly after adoption of theProtocol (in August 1988) appear to underestimate the marginal cost oflimiting CFC consumption. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2000

Suggested Citation

  • James Hammitt, 2000. "Are The Costs of Proposed Environmental Regulations Overestimated? Evidence from the CFC Phaseout," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 16(3), pages 281-302, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:16:y:2000:i:3:p:281-302
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1008352022368
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1008352022368
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1023/A:1008352022368?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney & Karen Palmer & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney, 2004. "Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm?," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 3, pages 53-66, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Arrow, Kenneth J. & Cropper, Maureen L. & Eads, George C. & Hahn, Robert W. & Lave, Lester B. & Noll, Roger G. & Portney, Paul R. & Russell, Milson & Schmalensee, Richard & Smith, V. Kerry & Stavins, , 1997. "Is there a role for benefit-cost analysis in environmental, health, and safety regulation?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 195-221, May.
    3. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    4. Shlyakhter, Alexander I. & Kammen, Daniel M. & Broido, Claire L. & Wilson, Richard, 1994. "Quantifying the credibility of energy projections from trends in past data : The US energy sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 119-130, February.
    5. Ellerman, A. Denny & Montero, Juan-Pablo, 1998. "The Declining Trend in Sulfur Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Allowance Prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-45, July.
    6. Thomas A. Barthold, 1994. "Issues in the Design of Environmental Excise Taxes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 133-151, Winter.
    7. Dechow, Patricia M. & Sloan, Richard G., 1997. "Returns to contrarian investment strategies: Tests of naive expectations hypotheses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 3-27, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Grubb & Jean-Francois Mercure & Pablo Salas & Rutger-Jan Lange & Ida Sognnaes, 2018. "Systems Innovation, Inertia and Pliability: A mathematical exploration with implications for climate change abatement," Working Papers EPRG 1808, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    2. Kopits, Elizabeth & McGartland, Al & Morgan, Cynthia & Pasurka, Carl & Shadbegian, Ron & Simon, Nathalie B. & Simpson, David & Wolverton, Ann, 2014. "Retrospective cost analyses of EPA regulations: a case study approach," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 173-193, June.
    3. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    4. Gunnar Prause & Eunice Omolola Olaniyi, 2019. "A compliance cost analysis of the SECA regulation in the Baltic Sea," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 6(4), pages 1907-1921, June.
    5. Johannes Urpelainen, 2011. "Frontrunners and Laggards: The Strategy of Environmental Regulation under Uncertainty," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(3), pages 325-346, November.
    6. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Stavins, Robert & Hahn, Robert & Cavanagh, Sheila, 2001. "National Environmental Policy During the Clinton Years," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-38, Resources for the Future.
    8. Meredith Fowlie & Christopher R. Knittel & Catherine Wolfram, 2012. "Sacred Cars? Cost-Effective Regulation of Stationary and Nonstationary Pollution Sources," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 98-126, February.
    9. Allen Blackman & Francisco Alpízar & Fredrik Carlsson & Marisol Rivera Planter, 2018. "A Contingent Valuation Approach to Estimating Regulatory Costs: Mexico’s Day without Driving Program," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(3), pages 607-641.
    10. Stephen DeCanio, 2003. "Economic Analysis, Environmental Policy, and Intergenerational Justice in the Reagan Administration The Case of the Montreal Protocol," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 299-321, December.
    11. Stavins, Robert, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Global Climate Change Policy: A Primer," Working Paper Series rwp00-003, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    12. Žiga Kotnik & Maja Klun & Renata Slabe-Erker, 2020. "Identification of the Factors That Affect the Environmental Administrative Burden for Businesses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-15, August.
    13. Fraas, Arthur G. & Kopits, Elizabeth & Wolverton, Ann, 2021. "A Retrospective Review of Retrospective Cost Analyses," RFF Working Paper Series 21-29, Resources for the Future.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Economics," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-54, Resources for the Future.
    2. Stavins, Robert, 2003. "Market-Based Environmental Policies: What Can We Learn from U.S. Experience and Related Research?," Working Paper Series rwp03-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Stavins, Robert, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Global Climate Change Policy: A Primer," Working Paper Series rwp00-003, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    6. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Giovanni Marin & Francesca Lotti, 2017. "Productivity effects of eco-innovations using data on eco-patents," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 125-148.
    8. Stavins, Robert & Hahn, Robert & Cavanagh, Sheila, 2001. "National Environmental Policy During the Clinton Years," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-38, Resources for the Future.
    9. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    10. de Vries, F.P. & Withagen, C.A.A.M., 2005. "Innovation and environmental stringency : The case of sulfur dioxide abatement," Other publications TiSEM 9f3f79ab-2646-4f72-845c-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Roediger-Schluge, Thomas, 2001. "The Stringency of Environmental Regulation and the 'Porter Hypothesis'," Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    12. Cañón de Francia, Joaquín & Garcés Ayerbe, Concepción, 2006. "Repercusión económica de la certificación medioambiental ISO 14001," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    13. Catherine Liston-Heyes & Anthony Heyes, 1999. "Corporate Lobbying, Regulatory Conduct and the Porter Hypothesis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(2), pages 209-218, March.
    14. Maxwell, John W., 1996. "What to do when win-win won't work: Environmental strategies for costly regulation," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 60-63.
    15. Costantini, Valeria & Crespi, Francesco, 2008. "Environmental regulation and the export dynamics of energy technologies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 447-460, June.
    16. Stefan Ambec & Paul Lanoie, 2007. "When and Why Does It Pay To Be Green?," CIRANO Working Papers 2007s-20, CIRANO.
    17. Isaksson, Lena Hoglund, 2005. "Abatement costs in response to the Swedish charge on nitrogen oxide emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 102-120, July.
    18. Gomez, Emilio Galdeano & Lorente, Jose Cespedes & Rodriguez, Manuel Rodriguez, 2002. "Environmental and Quality Improvement Practices: Their Analysis as Components of the Value Added in Horticultural Firms," 2002 International Congress, August 28-31, 2002, Zaragoza, Spain 24870, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Roger Fouquet, 2012. "Economics of Energy and Climate Change: Origins, Developments and Growth," Working Papers 2012-08, BC3.
    20. Yanli Li & Jiayuan Li & Luyao Gan, 2022. "A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Environmental Regulations and Competitiveness and Conditions for Its Realization," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-12, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:16:y:2000:i:3:p:281-302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.