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.

Does Happiness Adapt? A Longitudinal Study of Disability with Implications for Economists and Judges

Abstract: Economics ignores the possibility of hedonic adaptation (the idea that people bounce back from utility shocks). This paper argues that economists are wrong to do so. It provides longitudinal evidence that individuals who become disabled go on to exhibit recovery in mental wellbeing. Adaptation to severe disability, however, is shown to be incomplete. The paper suggests ways to calculate the level of compensatory damages for the pain and suffering from disablement. Courts all over the world currently use ad hoc methods.

Economic impacts of non-native forest insects in the continental United States.

Abstract: Reliable estimates of the impacts and costs of biological invasions are critical to developing credible management, trade and regulatory policies. Worldwide, forests and urban trees provide important ecosystem services as well as economic and social benefits, but are threatened by non-native insects. More than 450 non-native forest insects are established in the United States but estimates of broad-scale economic impacts associated with these species are largely unavailable. We developed a novel modeling approach that maximizes the use of available data, accounts for multiple sources of uncertainty, and provides cost estimates for three major feeding guilds of non-native forest insects. For each guild, we calculated the economic damages for five cost categories and we estimated the probability of future introductions of damaging pests. We found that costs are largely borne by homeowners and municipal governments. Wood- and phloemboring insects are anticipated to cause the largest economic impacts by annually inducing nearly $1.7 billion in local government expenditures and approximately $830 million in lost residential property values. Given observations of new species, there is a 32% chance that another highly destructive borer species will invade the U.S. in the next 10 years. Our damage estimates provide a crucial but previously missing component of cost-benefit analyses to evaluate policies and management options intended to reduce species introductions. The modeling approach we developed is highly flexible and could be similarly employed to estimate damages in other countries or natural resource sectors.

The "Stern Review" on the Economics of Climate Change

Abstract: How much and how fast should the globe reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? How should nations balance the costs of the reductions against the damages and dangers of climate change? This question has been addressed by the recent "Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," which answers these questions clearly and unambiguously We need urgent, sharp, and immediate reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions An analysis of the "Stern Review" finds that these recommendations depend decisively on the assumption of a near-zero social discount rate The Review's unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of discounting assumptions that are consistent with today's market place

Free Market Environmentalism

Abstract: Free Market Environmentalism by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal is a call to action rather than an empirical study. These authors argue that the environment and the market are inextricably connected in a positive rather than negative way. In their view, individual property owners, who are in a position and have an incentive to obtain time- and place-specific information about their resource endowments, are better suited than centralized bureaucracies to manage resources. Government should strive as much as possible to encourage and facilitate the working of the market through the enforcement of property rights, including clearly specified titles, strict liability rules and adjudication of disputed property rights in court. Markets could then be created in a variety of environmental policy domains. For example, Yellowstone National park currently has a problem with migrating bison who wander off the park premises and infect the cattle of adjoining ranches with deadly viruses. To Anderson and Leal, this problem could be solved if park officials owned the bison and could be sued for damages. Overfishing could be solved through the allocation of property rights to specific people who would be allowed to trade their rights. This property rights model is applied tomore » a wide variety of environmental circumstances and problems including land policy, outdoor recreation, energy development, groundwater pollution, garbage disposal, and global warming.« less

Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy

Abstract: This study presents a framework to include environmental externali- ties into a system of national accounts. The paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the United States. An inte- grated-assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pol- lution emissions for the US which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by industry to compute gross damages. Solid waste com- bustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added. The largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal-fired electric generation, whose damages range from 0.8 to 5.6 times value added. (JEL E01, L94, Q53, Q56)