Higher levels of no-till agriculture associated with lower PM2.5 in the Corn Belt

No-till approaches to agricultural soil management have been encouraged as a means of reducing soil erosion, reducing water pollution, and increasing carbon sequestration. An understudied additional benefit of no-till approaches may be improvements in local air quality. No-till approaches involve reductions in both machinery use and soil erosion, both of which could lead to improvements in air quality. We leverage recent advances in remote sensing and air pollution modelling to examine this question at a landscape scale. Combining data on daily PM _2.5 levels with satellite measures of no-till uptake since 2005, we show a strong association between increasing adoption of no-till and reductions in county average PM _2.5 pollution over more than 28 million hectares of cropland in the American Corn Belt. The reduction in local pollution implies substantial monetary benefits from reductions in mortality that are roughly one-fourth as large as the estimated carbon benefits. The benefits of mortality reductions are also, by themselves, nearly equal to the current monetary costs of subsidizing no-till practices

Securing property rights

Supplemental material files: online appendices; data archiveA central challenge in securing property rights is the subversion of justice. We present a model of a polluter whose discharges harm multiple owners, and we compare property rules, liability rules, and regulation on efficiency grounds. We provide conditions under which property rules are preferred to liability rules, thus verifying the Calabresi-Melamed conjecture. Regulation that enforces partial abatement may be preferred to either of the extreme rules. An empirical analysis of water quality in the United States before and after the Clean Water Act shows that the effects of regulation are consistent with several predictions of the model.Ponzetto acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (CITIZINGLOBAL 714905), from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RYC-2013-13838) and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000915-S), and from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the SGR Programme (2017-SGR-1393) and CERCA Programme

Allocating Damage Compensation in a Federalist System: Lessons from Spatially Resolved Air Emissions in the Marcellus

The benefits and impacts of unconventional natural gas development are realized at different spatial scales, calling into question the appropriate jurisdictional level at which to set and enforce environmental policy. This paper evaluates impact fee allocation under Pennsylvania Act 13, which authorizes Commonwealth payments to Pennsylvania counties to offset damages from unconventional natural gas extraction in exchange for consolidated state-level regulatory authority. We evaluate the adequacy of damage compensation allocation for impacts that are spatially and temporally removed from the well site, using the air emissions associated with natural gas wastewater transport as a case study. Wastewater transport from wells eligible for 2011 impact fee disbursement calculations generated an estimated $11.6 million in air emission damages from 2004 to 2013, with 35% of damages occurring out-of-state and an average of 94% of damages occurring out-of-county. We find that compensatory payments from Pennsylvania Act 13, which are based upon the number of wells drilled in a county in a single year, inadequately account for spatially and temporally distributed impacts from wastewater transport. This case study of Pennsylvania Act 13 highlights potential issues associated with central regulators using compensatory payments as a means of resolving jurisdictional conflict. In cases where the central regulator benefits from the polluting activity, we argue that there is incentive to focus compensation on local damages and undervalue regional and spatially distributed damages in compensation algorithms

Securing property rights

A central challenge in securing property rights is the subversion of justice through legal skill, bribery, or physical force by the strong the state or its powerful citizens against the weak.We present evidence that undue influence on judges is a common concern in many countries, especially among the poor. We then present a model of a water polluter whose discharges contaminate adjacent land. If this polluter can subvert the assessment of damages caused by his activity, there is an efficiency case for granting the landowner the right to an injunction that stops the polluter, rather than the right to compensation for the harm. If the polluter can subvert even the determination of his responsibility for harm, there is an efficiency case for regulation that restricts pollution regardless of its effects. We then conduct an empirical analysis of water quality in the U.S. before and after the Clean Water Act, and show how regulation brought about cleaner water, particularly in states with higher corruption

Does the housing market reflect cultural heritage? A case study of Greater Dublin

Does the housing market reflect cultural heritage? We estimate several specifications of a hedonic price equation to establish whether distance to, and density of, cultural heritage site is capitalised into housing prices in Greater Dublin, Ireland. We use a very rich dataset of housing and neighbourhood characteristics and include 104 location-fixed effects, which represent very small areas, ensuring the identification of the price effects on similar houses in similar areas. Our results show that some types of cultural heritage sites, such as historic buildings, memorials, and Martello towers, provide positive spillovers to property prices while archaeological sites seem to be a negative amenity. We interpret these premiums (or lack thereof) as capturing aesthetic beauty