Four Essays of Environmental Risk-Mitigation

Expected damages of environmental risks depend both on their intensities and probabilities. There is very little control over probabilities of climate related disasters such as hurricanes. Therefore, researchers of social science are interested identifying preparation and mitigation measures that build human resilience to disasters and avoid serious loss. Conversely, environmental degradation, which is a process through which the natural environment is compromised in some way, has been accelerated by human activities. As scientists are finding effective ways on how to prevent and reduce pollution, the society often fails to adopt these effective preventive methods. Researchers of psychological and contextual characterization offer specific lessons for policy interventions that encourage human efforts to reduce pollution. This dissertation addresses four discussions of effective policy regimes encouraging pro-environmental preference in consumption and production, and promoting risk mitigation behavior in the face of natural hazards. The first essay describes how the speed of adoption of environment friendly technologies is driven largely by consumers’ preferences and their learning dynamics rather than producers’ choice. The second essay is an empirical analysis of a choice experiment to understand preferences for energy efficient investments. The empirical analysis suggests that subjects tend to increase energy efficient investment when they pay a pollution tax proportional to the total expenditure on energy consumption. However, investments in energy efficiency seem to be crowded out when subjects have the option to buy health insurance to cover pollution related health risks. In context of hurricane risk mitigation and in evidence of recently adopted My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program by the State of Florida, the third essay shows that households with home insurance, prior experience with damages, and with a higher sense of vulnerability to be affected by hurricanes are more likely to allow home inspection to seek mitigation information. The fourth essay evaluates the impact of utility disruption on household well being based on the responses of a household-level phone survey in the wake of hurricane Wilma. Findings highlight the need for significant investment to enhance the capacity of rapid utility restoration after a hurricane event in the context of South Florida

Crystal Structure of the Heteromolecular Chaperone, AscE-AscG, from the Type III Secretion System in Aeromonas hydrophila

10.1371/journal.pone.0019208PLoS ONE64

Hurricane Wilma, utility disruption, and household wellbeing

Hurricanes with drenching rains and gusty winds bring down power lines and other critical infrastructures, and grind a region\u27s economy to a halt. Consequently, the disruption of public utility services (e.g., water supply, electricity and telephone) and the suspension of local economic activities (e.g., transportation and local businesses) result in significant losses for households\u27 wellbeing. On the other hand, hurricane preparation, for example mitigation measures targeted to reduce wind related damages (e.g., shutters, hurricane resistant windows and doors) and alternative resources for dealing with emergency situations (e.g., electric generator and hurricane supplies) could help reduce the post-disaster impacts. Based on data collected through a household survey right after Hurricane Wilma (2005), we have analyzed the survey responses using ordered logistic estimation approach and have found the evidence of effectiveness of household-level hurricane preparations. We have found that interruptions in electricity and water supply are the major drivers behind the reported losses of households\u27 wellbeing. Results also show evidence of the benefit of hurricane shutters and generators in reducing the adverse impacts of Hurricane Wilma in South Florida. Our findings imply that significant investment in rapid restoration of public utility services following a natural disaster is instrumental in South Florida and beyond

Understanding Household Preferences for Hurricane Risk Mitigation Information: Evidence from Survey Responses

Risk information is critical to adopting mitigation measures, and seeking risk information is influenced by a variety of factors. An essential component of the recently adopted My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program by the State of Florida is to provide homeowners with pertinent risk information to facilitate hurricane risk mitigation activities. We develop an analytical framework to understand household preferences for hurricane risk mitigation information through allowing an intensive home inspection. An empirical analysis is used to identify major drivers of household preferences to receive personalized information regarding recommended hurricane risk mitigation measures. A variety of empirical specifications show that households with home insurance, prior experience with damages, and with a higher sense of vulnerability to be affected by hurricanes are more likely to allow inspection to seek information. However, households with more members living in the home and households who live in manufactured/mobile homes are less likely to allow inspection. While findings imply MSFH program\u27s ability to link incentives offered by private and public agencies in promoting mitigation, households that face a disproportionately higher level of risk can get priority to make the program more effective. © 2014 Society for Risk Analysis

Energy conservation and health risk reduction: an experimental investigation of punishing vs. rewarding incentives

Combustion of fossil fuels is the major source of energy in the United States and around the world. The combustion causes emission of greenhouse gases and particle pollution, which leads to health hazards. As people become increasingly conscious of their carbon footprints, they may choose to reduce their energy consumption using a variety of energy-saving technologies. We design a context-rich incentivized decision-making experiment in a laboratory set-up. The decision scenario has been enriched with elements of a public good, risk, and intertemporal discounting. Each subject represents a household and decides how much to spend on energy-saving technologies that can reduce future energy costs and emissions. The reduction in emission decreases health risk and medical costs for an individual and everyone else in the group. Discounting is represented by the ability to save, with interest. Each subject plays three sections (baseline, a treatment, and a repeated baseline). Each section had 30 rounds. The treatment has a threshold public good feature of energy-savings. The emission tax level depends on the aggregate energy-savings. Subjects exhibit significant learning effect and tend to increase adoption rate of energy-saving technologies over time. The adoption rate significantly improves when subjects can reduce their emission tax obligations by decreasing their energy consumption. There is no evidence of significant change in behavior when subjects learn energy-saving choices made by other group members

Proposed reform of the H-1B programme under Trump administration and the adverse selection in Green Card applications

The dialogue of major reform in immigration laws along with increase in rejection of H-1B petitioners since the start of the Trump administration may make employers find H-1B renewal becoming more difficult and costly for low-end positions and less-educated employees. Using the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) application data, this article examines the impact of the recent threat of immigration reform on the share of entry-level positions and petitioners with no college degree in Green Card applications. We found evidence that entry-level positions and applicants without a college degree became more heavily represented among new PERM applications after 2016, even when a trend and occupations were accounted for. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that employers face stronger incentive to retain workers and sponsor their PERM applications since H-1B renewal will likely become more difficult and costly for low-end positions and less-educated workers

Willingness to pay for safe drinking water: A contingent valuation study in Jacksonville, FL

A surprising number of U.S. cities have drinking water with unhealthy levels of chemicals and contaminants. The city of Jacksonville (Florida), the location for this study, owns the dubious distinction of being ranked among the worst major American cities in water quality according to water quality tests conducted between 2005 and 2009 by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). This report of toxic chemicals in the Jacksonville water supply generated considerable negative publicity and coincides with a frequent and common complaint among residents of foul-smelling water. System revenues from water supply and program subsidies from government are often inadequate in mitigating the problems, perceived or real, with water quality. Therefore, this paper investigates how much residents will be willing to pay for improvements in the quality of tap water. The commonly known economic metric willingness-to-pay (WTP) is applied to estimate any possible rate hikes public utility can assess in any effort to improve real or perceived water quality. The study shows that the estimated weighted average of WTP is $6.22, which can be added to the regular water bill without eliciting much negative reaction from residents. Evidence shows that factors such as trust in authorities, health concerns, family structure, and education significantly impact the WTP

Perceptions of Quality and Household Water Usage: A Representative Study in Jacksonville, FL

When faced with the fear of low-quality tap water, households are motivated to seek out and use alternatives. This study investigated the role of quality perception and aesthetics on choices among three modes of household water usage: unfiltered tap water, filtered tap water, and bottled water. The data were based on a telephone survey of randomly selected households in Jacksonville, FL, conducted during March 2016. As the three modes of water usage were not mutually exclusive, a multivariate probit model was fitted and simultaneous parameter estimates were generated for each of three binary equations. The key results suggest that concerns regarding safety, contamination and sickness linked to unfiltered tap water are associated with increased bottled water usage in the home, but they have no effect on water filter usage. By contrast, complaints about foul-smelling water are associated with increased usage of water filters. In addition, the evidence implies that while water filter usage increases with household income, bottled water usage appears insensitive to changes in income. Finally, African-American households have a higher probability than other racial groups of using bottled water in the home, all else equal

Insights from a Stated Preference Experiment of Florida Residents: Role of Information and Incentives in Hurricane Risk Mitigation

For decades, Florida residents have lost billions of dollars in property damage because of wind and wind-driven rainwater intrusion from tropical cyclones. Engineers and scientists have demonstrated that future losses can be reduced significantly with practical resilience-enhancing mitigation measures. The role of policy makers therefore is to design successful strategies that will result in the adoption of approved mitigation measures by homeowners. The rational design and delivery of vulnerability information and mitigation options are a critical part of such programs. Confronting and overcoming the significant upfront costs of mitigation with novel financing mechanisms is essential as well. To maximize the use of constrained funding allocated for resilience policies, this paper explores the effectiveness of vulnerability information and financial assistance programs to facilitate mitigation using online survey responses from households across Florida. The survey is designed to test preferences for low- and high-cost roofing and opening protection measures to reduce hurricane-related damages in the context of information and incentive treatments. Empirical analysis indicates that financial incentives are preferred to vulnerability information to foster mitigation