Environmental Economics

Hey guys,

For those of you who didn't make the lunch today, the econ club actually had a great talk with Dr. Vossler and Dr. Evans about environmental economics, which is their field of research. Environmental economics is a branch that uses different methodologies to put prices on things that don't necessarily have a market price, such as air quality, water quality, and mortality risks. Currently, Dr. Vossler and Dr. Evans are working on a project involving the EPA and helping them come up with a better audit system for companies who cheat on their voluntary regulation report on their pollution and emissions of harmful chemicals. It is some really interesting research.

Some of the other things that we discussed are the different methodologies used in environmental economics such as state of preference treatments, which are used to measure how much someone values a environmental policy. Also, we talked about who really suffers when there is an oil spill off the coast of Alaska like the one from the recent past involving Exxon? How do you know how much damages a company should pay? Dr. Vossler explained it is not just based on loss of tourism revenue or the time people put in to clean the spill or the loss of revenue to fisherman; but it is also based on the people who see the little oil covered duck or bird being cleaned or the people who just hear about it even who suffer a welfare loss, meaning that they are worse off then before the incident occured.

Another topic we discussed was if there is a trend to maybe some global regulating body towards pollution. Apparently given that the standards differ on so many levels from country to country, it really isn't feasible without some global initiative. They did mention a UN sponsored agreement that was voluntary to sign up for countries and binding but if your country didn't commit to this pollution agreement there really wasn't a penalty.

Overall, it was a really interesting talk. I highly recommend that everyone attend our next luncheon with faculty.