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    Portney, Paul R, and Robert N Stavins. “Regulatory Review of Environmental Policy: The Potential Role of Health-Health Analysis.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (1994): 111–122. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    regulatory_review_of_environmental_policy.pdf

    Health-health analysis (HHA) posits a seemingly unassailable criterion for regulatory assessment: policies intended to protect human health ought to exhibit positive health benefits. Despite the apparent logic of this criterion, it is important to ask whether it would aid in the quest for better public policies. In the context of environmental issues, we find that HHA can be useful by reminding us that it is the net health impact of a proposed regulation that can be important. However, we also find that in most applications the health impacts of regulatory compliance costs are unlikely to be significant. Conventional benefit-cost analysis ought to remain the principal tool of economic assessment of environmental laws and regulations.

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    Ranson, Matthew, and Robert N Stavins. “Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems.” Chicago Journal of International Law 13 (2013): 403–438. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    ranson_stavins_linkage_paper_for_chicago_journal_of_international_law.pdf

    The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. We evaluate one important component of potential climate polig architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases, because linkage reduces the cost of achieving given targets, there is tremendous pressure to link existing and planned cap-and-trade systems, and in fact, a number of links already or will soon exist. We draw on recent political and economic experience with linkage to evaluate potential roles that linkage may play in post-Durban international climate policy, both in a near-term, de facto architecture of indirect links between regional, national, and sub-national cap-and-trade systems, and in a longer-term, more comprehensive bottom-up architecture of direct links. Although linkage will certainly help to reduce long-term abatement costs, it may also serve as an effective mechanism for building institutional and political structure to support a future climate agreement. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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    Jaffe, Judson, and Robert N Stavins. “On the Value of Formal Assessment of Uncertainty in Regulatory Analysis.” Regulation & Governance 1 (2007): 154–171.Abstract
    jaffe_stavins_uncertainty_in_rias_in_regulation_governance.pdf

    The US Office of Management and Budget introduced in 2003 a new requirement for the treatment of uncertainty in Regulatory Impact Analyses (RIAs) of proposed regulations, requiring agencies to carry out a formal quantitative uncertainty assessment regarding a regulation’s benefits and costs if either is expected to reach \$1 billion annually. Despite previous use in other contexts, such formal assessments of uncertainty have rarely been employed in RIAs or other regulatory analyses. We describe how formal quantitative assessments of uncertainty – in particular, Monte Carlo analyses – can be conducted, we examine the challenges and limitations of such analyses in the context of RIAs, and we assess how the resulting information can affect the evaluation of regulations. For illustrative purposes, we compare Monte Carlo analysis with methods typically used in RIAs to evaluate uncertainty in the context of economic analyses carried out for the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Nonroad Diesel Rule, which became effective in 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Regulation & Governance is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

    A-50

    Ranson, Matthew, and Robert N Stavins. “Linkage of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Systems: Learning from Experience.” Climate Policy (2015): 1–17. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    ranson_stavins_climate_policy_2015.pdf

    The last ten years have seen the growth of linkages between many of the world's cap-and-trade systems for GHGs, both directly between systems, and indirectly via connections to credit systems such as the Clean Development Mechanism. If nations have tried to act in their own self-interest, this proliferation of linkages implies that for many nations, the expected benefits of linkage outweighed expected costs. In this article, we draw on the past decade of experience with carbon markets to examine why systems have demonstrated this revealed preference for linking. Linkage is a multi-faceted policy decision that can be used by political jurisdictions to achieve a variety of objectives, and we find qualitative evidence that many economic, political, and strategic factors – ranging from geographic proximity to integrity of emissions reductions – influence the decision to link. We also identify some potentially important effects of linkage, such as loss of control over domestic carbon policies, which do not appear to have deterred real-world decisions to link.Policy relevanceThese findings have implications for the future role that decentralized linkages may play in international climate policy architecture. The Kyoto Protocol has entered what is probably its final commitment period, covering only a small fraction of global GHG emissions. Under the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, negotiators may now gravitate toward a hybrid system, combining top-down elements for establishing targets with bottom-up elements of pledge-and-review tied to national policies and actions. The incentives for linking these national policies are likely to continue to produce direct connections among regional, national, and sub-national cap-and-trade systems. The growing network of decentralized, direct linkages among these systems may turn out to be a key part of a future hybrid climate policy architecture.

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    Lubowski, Ruben N, Andrew J Plantinga, and Robert N Stavins. “Land-Use Change and Carbon Sinks: Econometric Estimation of the Carbon Sequestration Supply Function.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 51 (2006): 135–152. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    carbon_sequestration_costs_w_lubowski_plantinga.pdf

    If the United States chooses to implement a greenhouse gas reduction program, it would be necessary to decide whether to include carbon sequestration policies—such as those that promote forestation and discourage deforestation—as part of the domestic portfolio of compliance activities. We investigate the cost of forest-based carbon sequestration by analyzing econometrically micro-data on revealed landowner preferences, modeling six major private land uses in a comprehensive analysis of the contiguous United States. The econometric estimates are used to simulate landowner responses to sequestration policies. We treat key commodity prices as endogenous and predict carbon storage changes with a carbon sink model. Our estimated sequestration costs exceed those from previous engineering cost analyses and sectoral optimization models. Our estimated sequestration supply function is similar to the carbon abatement supply function from energy-based analyses, suggesting that forest-based carbon sequestration merits consideration in a cost-effective portfolio of domestic US climate change strategies.

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