Estimating the Impact on Efficiency from Voluntary Regulation: An Empirical Study of the Global Copper Mining Industry

This paper uses plant level data on the world's copper min ing industry to measure changes in efficiency from the adoption of the ISO 14001 environmental standard. The ISO 14001 is a voluntary standard that sets out minimum guidelines and procedures that fi…rms should follow in order to achieve more effective management of the environment. Anecdotal and case study lit erature suggests that …firms are motivated to adopt the ISO 14001 standard and seek certi…cation for a number of reasons. One important reason is the desire to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings through changes in operating proce dures and processes aimed at the minimization of waste pollution and reduction in the use of resource inputs. Using plant level data from 1992-2007 on virtually all of the world's industrial copper mines the study tests this hypothesis in a stochastic frontier and random effects model framework. The study measures the impact on operations of ISO 14001 adoption both in respect to the intention to seek ISO 14001 certi…cation (the period before certi…cation when …firms must make necessary changes to their operations and management) and the period when and after certi…cation is achieved. The study fi…nds no evidence that adoption of the ISO 14001 standard imposes a cost on fi…rms - either through lower efficiencies or higher costs. In fact, in many cases adoption is associated with higher efficiency, and to a certain extent, lower costs. Thus, the study's fi …ndings would tend to go against the claims of much of the academic literature that regulation has negative impacts on the fi…rm. Although fi…ndings were not robust to model choice or a subset sample, our results clearly indicate that, at a minimum, the adoption of the ISO 14001 does not raise costs or lower efficiency for fi…rms.ISO 14001; stochastic frontier production function; effi ciency; cost savings; mining.

Do environmental regulations affect the location decisions of multinational gold mining firms?

This paper empirically analyzes the location decisions of the world's major gold mining …rms using a data set of political, economic, regulatory, infrastructural and investment risk variables observed for a large number of gold producing countries since 1975. The aim of the study is to determine the signi…cance of environmental stringency in forming location decisions while controlling for other potentially important variables that may a¤ect such decisions. Using both a conditional and a mixed logit regression approach, the study …nds consistently strong country location preferences among multinational gold mining …rms. These preferences paint a picture of an industry attracted to countries that are close to their head o¢ ce, provide a business environment characterized by low levels of …nancial risk and high levels of political stability and predictability in mining operations. While mining …rms also appear to be attracted to countries that have a clean environment is less strong and uniformly robust. This preference for a clean environment may itself be reflective of the strong desire to go to countries that are e¢ ciently run, provide clear rules and regulations, and are secure and predictable in their operations. Moreover, while they prefer to go to countries with low levels of corruption, this characteristic seems less important than the desire for security, transparency and stability in government and operations.Taken together, these preferences for a clean, well-run countries may reflect the adoption by mining …rms of a deliberate strategy intended to minimize the risks to their hugely expensive and immobile investments

University role in astronaut life support systems - Water recovery systems

Water reclamation from spacecraft waste for astronaut life support syste

What is the Environmental Performance of Firms Overseas?: An Empirical Investigation of the Global Gold Mining Industry

Bayesian stochastic frontier analysis; efficiency; environmental regulations and plant performance; pollution havens; regulatory chill; gold mining.

An Investigation of Thresholds in Air Pollution-Mortality Effects

In this paper we introduce and implement new techniques to investigate threshold effects in air pollution-mortality relationships. Our key interest is in measuring the dose-response relationship above and below a given threshold level where we allow for a large number of potential explanatory variables to trigger the threshold effect. This is in contrast to existing approaches that usually focus on a single threshold trigger. We allow for a myriad of threshold effects within a Bayesian statistical framework that accounts for model uncertainty (i.e. uncertainty about which threshold trigger and explanatory variables are appropriate). We apply these techniques in an empirical exercise using daily data from Toronto for 1992-1997. We investigate the existence and nature of threshold effects in the relationship between mortality and ozone (O3), total particulate matter (PM) and an index of other conventionally occurring air pollutants. In general, we find the effects of our considered pollutants on mortality to be statistically indistinguishable from zero with no evidence of thresholds. The one exception is ozone, for which results present an ambiguous picture. Ozone has no significant effect on mortality when we exclude threshold effects from the analysis. Allowing for thresholds we find a positive and significant effect for this pollutant when the threshold trigger is the average change in ozone two days ago. However, this significant effect is not observed after controlling for PM.Threshold-air pollution mortality effects; Bayesian model; averaging; PM; O3

Forecasting the European Carbon Market

In an effort to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, in 2005 the European Union introduced a cap-and-trade scheme where mandated installations are allocated permits to emit CO2. Financial markets have developed that allow companies to trade these carbon permits. For the EU to achieve reductions in CO2 emissions at a minimum cost, it is necessary that companies make appropriate investments and policymakers design optimal policies. In an effort to clarify the workings of the carbon market, several recent papers have attempted to statistically model it. However, the European carbon market (EU ETS) has many institutional features that potentially impact on daily carbon prices (and associated ?nancial futures). As a consequence, the carbon market has properties that are quite different from conventional financial assets traded in mature markets. In this paper, we use dynamic modelaveraging (DMA) in order to forecast in this newly-developing market. DMA is a recently-developed statistical method which has three advantages over conventional approaches. First, it allows the coe¢ cients on the predictors in a forecasting model to change over time. Second, it allows for the entire forecasting model to change over time. Third, it surmounts statistical problems which arise from the large number of potential predictors that can explain carbon prices. Our empirical results indicate that there are both important policy and statistical benefits with our approach. Statistically, we present strong evidence that there is substantial turbulence and change in the EU ETS market, and that DMA can model these features and forecast accurately compared to conventional approaches. From a policy perspective, we discuss the relative and changing role of different price drivers in the EU ETS. Finally, we document the forecast performance of DMA and discuss how this relates to the efficiency and maturity of this market.Bayesian, carbon permit trading, financial markets, state space model, model averaging

Does air pollution cause respiratory illness? A new look at Canadian cities

It is routinely asserted that urban air pollution is a major cause of acute respiratory conditions, leading to thousands of hospitalizations each year. The claim is based on inferences from partial correlations between ambient air pollution levels and hospitalization rates. Yet questions persist about the statistical robustness of the epidemiological findings, and controlled experiments have not confirmed the statistical findings. In this paper we present and analyze a new monthly data base showing concentrations of five major air contaminants in 11 large Canadian cities from 1974 to 1994, matched with monthly hospital admission rates by age group for all lung diagnostic categories; as well as a comprehensive set of socioeconomic and meteorological covariates. We compare two estimation approaches: model selection and Bayesian model averaging. Almost all of our estimates of the health effects of air pollution are insignificant. Two pollutant types have significantly negative coefficients, indicating, if interpreted in the standard way, that these pollutants are actually beneficial for health. We do not claim this, but we conclude that the perceived statistical relationship between air pollution and health is not robust

CDTI: Crew Function Assessment

Man machine interaction often requires the operator to perform a sterotyped scan of instruments to monitor and/or control a system. Situations in which this type of behavior exists, such as instrument flight, scan pattern has been shown to be altered by imposition of simultaneous verbal tasks. The relationship between pilot visual scan of instruments and mental workload was described. A verbal loading task of varying difficulty caused pilots to stare at the primary instrument as the difficulty increased and to shed looks at instruments of less importance. The verbal loading task affected rank ordering of scanning sequences. The behavior of pilots with widely varying skill levels suggested that these effects occur most strongly at lower skill levels and are less apparent at high skill levels. Graphical interpretation of the hypothetical relationship between skill, workload, and performance is introduced and modeling results are presented to support this interpretation