Damages

About: Damages is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9365 publications have been published within this topic receiving 89750 citations. The topic is also known as: compensation award.

Spatial targeting of floodplain restoration to equitably mitigate flood risk

Abstract: Floodplain restoration offers an opportunity to enhance communities’ resilience to flooding. However, the degree to which these interventions mitigate damages is often unknown, and identifying the best locations for implementation is a challenge. Further, the extent to which the benefits of flood mitigation are equitably distributed within communities is rarely considered in restoration projects. Here, we develop a novel framework to optimize investments in floodplain restoration that maximizes the utility of avoided damages from flood inundation for a range of budgetary constraints. We estimate the expected reduction in flood damages from restoration interventions by integrating a hydraulic flood model and an economic damage cost model. Using equity-weighted utility functions, we explicitly evaluate how the value of reduction in flood damages varies for different property owners. We demonstrate the potential of this approach in the Lewis Creek watershed, located in Vermont, USA. Under all optimal scenarios, the benefits of avoided flood damages over a 100-year time period outweigh the costs of restoration by at least 5-to-1. Floodplain restoration has the potential to reduce the present value of damages by up to $400,000, a 5% decrease from the baseline, at a cost of only $75,000. We also show that the equity-weighted utility of flood mitigation increase when restoration interventions protect the lowest-income property owners, particularly those who live in mobile homes. Together, our results illuminate the importance of evaluating the distribution of benefits and costs associated with alternative restoration strategies, as well as underscore the capacity for floodplain restoration to build resilience to flooding.

Current and projected regional economic impacts of heatwaves in Europe.

Abstract: Extreme heat undermines the working capacity of individuals, resulting in lower productivity, and thus economic output. Here we analyse the present and future economic damages due to reduced labour productivity caused by extreme heat in Europe. For the analysis of current impacts, we focused on heatwaves occurring in four recent anomalously hot years (2003, 2010, 2015, and 2018) and compared our findings to the historical period 1981–2010. In the selected years, the total estimated damages attributed to heatwaves amounted to 0.3–0.5% of European gross domestic product (GDP). However, the identified losses were largely heterogeneous across space, consistently showing GDP impacts beyond 1% in more vulnerable regions. Future projections indicate that by 2060 impacts might increase in Europe by a factor of almost five compared to the historical period 1981–2010 if no further mitigation or adaptation actions are taken, suggesting the presence of more pronounced effects in the regions where these damages are already acute. Heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent and more intense, causing severe economic impacts through reduced labour productivity. Here, the authors show that economic damages in Europe exceed 1% of the GDP in vulnerable areas, which might increase by a factor of almost five in the medium term without climate action.

Private Information and the Deterrent Effect of Antitrust Damage Remedies

Abstract: The private treble damages remedy for antitrust violations allows the victim to collect triple the overcharge from the antitrust violator. This remedy is intended to deter antitrust violations, compensate victims, and prevent the unjust enrichment of lawbreakers. Critics contend, though, that it deters the creation of joint ventures that would produce large social cost savings, and that the haphazard nature of compensation is unfair to victims as a class. In this article I evaluate systematically the allocative consequences of the set of possible private antitrust damages remedies, including treble damages, with a partial equilibrium model. Both buyer (victim) and seller (violator) are modeled as optimizing actors in a world where the prospect of a successful private antitrust damages action is uncertain. The model recognizes the importance of ancillary social benefits arising from anticompetitive actions. Anticompetitive seller behavior is deterred by the prospect of antitrust dam-

Harm to the environment : the right to compensation and the assessment of damages

Abstract: This collection of essays by a group of international environmental law experts focuses on the growing and controversial international debate about environmental damage. Rules concerning liability and compensation come into play when administrative regulations have failed to prevent the occurrence of environmental damage. After such occurrence interest focuses upon the question of compensation either in the form of reinstatement of the environment or, if that is not possible or economically feasible, by making financial compensations. The essays in this volume address the current state of the law in the US and Europe and pose questions about its future development.

The Tobacco Deal

Abstract: We analyse the major economic issues raised by the 1997 Tobacco Resolution and the ensuing proposed legislation that were intended to settle tobacco litigation in the United States. By settling litigation largely in return for tax increases, the Resolution was a superb example of a "win-win" deal. The taxes would cost the companies about $1 billion per year, but yield the government about $13 billion per year, and allow the lawyers to claim fees based on hundreds of billions in "damages". Only consumers, in whose name many of the lawsuits were filed, lost out. Though the strategy seems brilliant for the parties involved, the execution was less intelligent. We show that alternative taxes would be considerably superior to those proposed, and explain problems with the damage payments required from the firms, and the legal protections offered to them. We argue that the legislation was not particularly focused on youth smoking, despite the rhetoric. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, youth smokers are not especially valuable to the companies, so marketing restrictions are a sensible part of any deal. The individual state settlements set very dangerous examples which could open up unprecedented opportunities for collusion throughout the economy, and the multistate settlement of November 1998 is equally flawed. The fees proposed for the lawyers (around $15 billion) and the equally remarkable proposed payoff for Liggett (perhaps $400 million annually, for a company with a prior market value of about $100 million) also set terrible examples. We conclude with some views about how public policy might do better.