Net Social Benefits Research Articles

零碳之路: “十四五”开启中国 绿色发展新篇章

As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China has a crucial role to play in tackling the climate crisis. Fortunately, China is signaling that it is taking this challenge seriously with President Xi Jinping’s recent announcement that China aims to peak its emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060. New analysis by WRI finds that China can peak its carbon emissions as early as 2026 and get on track to achieving President Xi’s vision for carbon neutrality while generating nearly $1 trillion in net economic and social benefits in 2050. To realize this vision, China must focus on four key priorities during the next five years: transitioning to cleaner sources of electricity; improving industrial energy efficiency; electrifying the transportation sector; and accelerating the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using carbon capture methods. Scaling up plans to curb non-CO2 greenhouse gases are also necessary, as are efforts to phase out coal power. Strengthened climate policies will also reduce particulate emissions, which could improve air quality and help prevent the premature deaths of up to 1.89 million people by 2050—a benefit of $240 billion in avoided health impacts. Over 30 years, China can also expect to generate cost savings of $530 billion in fuel, operation, and maintenance expenditures and avoid $445 billion in climate damages. Three economically advanced regions—the Yangtze River Delta Region, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area—can lead the way to achieving China’s 2030 peaking and 2060 net-zero climate goals early while generating millions of new jobs in the process.

Fever From the Lost Forest: Impacts and Management of Health Externalities From Land Use Change in Brazil

Land use change alters the movement of people, pathogens, and vectors, creating novel pathways for disease emergence. A growing body of empirical evidence finds that land use change affects the incidence of vector-borne disease. When management decisions and policy do not consider this relationship, there is potential social welfare loss through health externalities. Herein we develop a dynamic model of optimal land use where both the state and control variable contribute to a negative externality- disease incidence. We compare the net social benefits and path of land conversion under an optimal management regime with scenarios in which the externalities are ignored. Using a two-tiered payment mechanism we demonstrate how the externalities can be internalized by adjusting the payments along the dynamic path of land use. The model is calibrated using malaria incidence and economic data from the Legal Amazon of Brazil. We find that ignoring the health costs of land use change reduces social net benefits of land management and impacts optimal land conversion trajectories. We then simulate the dynamic path of socially optimal management and examine the sensitivity of our predictions by modifying the model assumptions.

Measuring the bioeconomic impacts of prolonged drought on a lake ecosystem: The case of the Great Salt Lake, Utah

AbstractWe present a general‐equilibrium (GE) bioeconomic model of Utah's Great Salt Lake (GSL) ecosystem that tightly links the lake's ecosystem with its regional economy and attendant international trading partners, thereby enabling full identification of dynamic feedback effects in the presence of prolonged drought. The drought modeled here mimics a drying climate's impact on the lake's nutrient pool. We demonstrate how prolonged drought affects key bioeconomic variables over time, and how the GSL bioeconomy recovers toward a new steady state. We also consider how two separate fishery‐specific regulatory tools—a temporary harvest moratorium and ad valorum tax on the fishery's factors of production—alter the bioeconomy's recovery path. Our main finding is that a fishery‐specific regulation can induce perverse social‐welfare effects in a GE context by inducing a shift of resources out of the fishery and into a sector of the economy that produces a negative externality, in our case pollution from the mining industry. These welfare effects are appraised with two different measures of equivalent variation—one based on an initial benchmark period and the other on expenditure differences that roll through time. Our model further demonstrates how these perverse‐welfare effects can be mitigated by imposing either an output or input tax on the mining industry.Recommendations for resource managers The general‐equilibrium bioeconomic model developed here for Utah's Great Salt Lake demonstrates how key bioeconomic variables can be tracked over time in response to an economic or ecological shock, such as prolonged drought. This numerical modeling tool provides an integrated perspective on the bioeconomic impacts of public policies that can be adopted to counteract these shocks. Estimates of the social net benefits associated with the public policies are provided. The context for assessing the net benefits of alternative fishery regulations is therefore broadened to account for a multispecies, multisector bioeconomy.

A social cost-benefit analysis of two One Health interventions to prevent toxoplasmosis

Abstract Background In the Netherlands, toxoplasmosis ranks third in disease burden among foodborne pathogens, with an estimated health loss of 1,900 Disability Adjusted Life Years and a cost-of-illness estimated at €44 million annually. We performed a Social Cost-Benefit Analysis (SCBA) to evaluate the net value of two potential interventions, freezing meat and improving biosecurity in pig farms, for the Dutch society. Methods We assessed the costs and benefits of the two interventions and compared them with the current practice of education, especially during pregnancy. A ‘minimum scenario’ and a ‘maximum scenario’ was assumed, using input parameters with least benefits to society and input parameters with most benefits to society, respectively. Results The freezing meat intervention was far more effective than the biosecurity intervention. Despite high freezing costs, freezing two meat products: steak tartare and mutton leg yielded net social benefits in both the minimum and maximum scenario, ranging from €10.6 million to €31 million for steak tartare and €0.6 million to €1.5 million for mutton leg. The biosecurity intervention would result in net costs in all scenarios ranging from €1 million to €2.5 millions. Conclusions From a public health perspective (i.e. reducing the burden of toxoplasmosis) freezing steak tartare and leg of mutton is to be considered.

Cost-benefit analysis of conservation policy: The red palm weevil in Catalonia, Spain

Invasive species are costly for human health, the environment and the economy while their burden is expected to rise. With limited budgets to address biological invasions, effective resource allocation is important. In the past decade, multiple frameworks have emerged to support this budgeting, but it is not clear if current strategies are consistent with these. Amongst invasive species, insects are the costliest. In this article we evaluate a set of conservation policies in response to the arrival of the invasive beetle, the red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) in Catalonia, Spain. The purpose of the selected schemes was to preserve palm species (Phoenix. spp) serving ornamental purposes. In a region with a large portion of land dedicated to agricultural activities and with densely populated coastal areas, budgets to address biological invasions should be carefully allocated. Through a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis based on the total economic value framework, we find that current policies were not justified as their net social benefits are negative.

Cryptodamages: Monetary value estimates of the air pollution and human health impacts of cryptocurrency mining

Cryptocurrency mining uses significant amounts of energy as part of the proof-of-work time-stamping scheme to add new blocks to the chain. Expanding upon previously calculated energy use patterns for mining four prominent cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero), we estimate the per coin economic damages of air pollution emissions and associated human mortality and climate impacts of mining these cryptocurrencies in the US and China. Results indicate that in 2018, each $1 of Bitcoin value created was responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in the US and $0.37 in China. The similar value in China relative to the US occurs despite the extremely large disparity between the value of a statistical life estimate for the US relative to that of China. Further, with each cryptocurrency, the rising electricity requirements to produce a single coin can lead to an almost inevitable cliff of negative net social benefits, absent perpetual price increases. For example, in December 2018, our results illustrate a case (for Bitcoin) where the health and climate change “cryptodamages” roughly match each $1 of coin value created. We close with discussion of policy implications.

Optimal investment to control ‘red air day’ episodes: lessons from Northern Utah, USA

ABSTRACTWe address the issue of optimal investment in ‘preventative capital’ to mitigate episodic, mobile-source air pollution events by calibrating an endogenous-risk model with parameter estimates obtained from a unique dataset related to ‘red air day’ episodes occurring during the winter months in Northern Utah. Our analysis demonstrates that, under a wide range of circumstances, the optimal steady-state level of preventative capital stock – raised through the issuance of a municipal ‘clean air bond’ that provides foundational funding for more aggressive mitigation efforts – can meet the standard for PM2.5 concentrations with positive social net benefits. We estimate benefit-cost ratios ranging between 3.1:1 and 11.3:1, depending upon trip-count elasticity with respect to preventative capital stock. These ratios are clustered in the lower end of the range estimated for the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments in general.

Teaching engineering for a changing landscape

AbstractEngineering educators face a rapidly changing, and ever more challenging world. Rapidly evolving industry demands, accreditation agencies, and students themselves are calling for an engineering education with integrated multidisciplinary design knowledge, leadership, communication, business, education, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and lifelong learning explicitly included in their undergraduate programs. Students still need the core content knowledge of thermodynamics, mass, energy, and momentum balances and fluxes. They also need integrated socio‐contextual knowledge to evaluate a design for sustainability and demonstrate a net positive social benefit. There is only so much time available in an undergraduate program and learning takes time. These challenges are driving changes to both what and how we teach our students to integrate broader competencies and enhance engineering student graduate attribute achievement. A framework for engineering education includes fundamental and socio‐contextual knowledge integrated with metacognitive and professional skill development. This contribution provides practical ideas for how to infuse these dimensions into courses, support the developing engineering practice, and deepen student engagement with their courses.

Soil acidity, lime application, nitrogen fertility, and greenhouse gas emissions: Optimizing their joint economic management

Soil acidity is a major limiting factor for crop production in many farming systems worldwide. Lime application is the most common practice to mitigate soil acidity. There are complex economic interactions between application of lime and nitrogen fertilizer, with the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the use of these inputs adding further complexity. We employ a non-linear dynamic optimization model to determine economically optimal application strategies for lime and nitrogen fertilizer accounting for the social cost of the resulting emissions of greenhouse gases. The model is applied in three zones with different rainfall levels, in the northern wheatbelt of Western Australia. Rainfall has important influences on results through its effect on the dissolution and leaching of lime, leaching of nitrogen, and the yield potential of crops. Results show that nitrogen-related decisions, such as the type of nitrogen fertilizer and crop rotation, have a substantial impact on optimal lime application rates and resulting emissions. For example, the use of ammonium sulfate, rather than urea, reduces emissions. Similarly, by allowing a reduction in nitrogen fertilizer use the incorporation of legume crops like lupin can reduce emissions by 50%, relative to a wholly non-legume crop rotation. Although carbon pricing reduces emissions, the magnitude of the reductions is modest in all modeled scenarios. The private cost to farmers of a carbon tax in this case study region is small, although the net social benefit of the carbon tax in this case study is smaller still, even without accounting for the transaction costs of operating the tax system.

Climate change and emerging risks. Innovative urban climate services as a strategy to improve resilience of human systems.

Climate change and extreme natural events are increasingly threatening human systems. Even if greenhouse gases emission were reduced to zero today, global warming and the consequent climate change would continue to affect future generations: as climate is changing, human systems must learn to adapt. This study focuses on the role, the use and the management of climate information to overcome the barriers to climate change adaptation action. The article first addresses the relationship between sustainable development and climate change, regarded as “two mutually reinforcing sides of the same coin”. After a short section on the complementarity of mitigation and adaptation strategies, it analyses the barriers to investments in climate adaptation action by public authorities: the uncertainty about the magnitude and the frequency of climate change-connected events, the common wrong perception of unlikelihood of global warming consequences and the intrinsic complexity characterizing human systems are identified as major constraints. These considerations lead to introduce the concepts of soft-resilience and low-regret adaptation strategies. The discipline of climate change adaptation based on soft-approach climate resilience strategies is closely linked to information management, information technologies, communications, logistics, geographic information services and good governance. Indeed, information management is here seen as the pillar of soft-approach strategies. Low-regret strategies are defined as measures that would generate net social and/or economic benefits both under current climate and a range of future climate change scenarios. Section 5 explores potential synergies between Climate Services (understood as any service, equipment, techniques, practical knowledge and skills that can be used to increase climate resilience of human system) and Urban Facility Management services. This study identifies Innovative Urban Climate Services, an integrated system of services addressing both climate and urban issues simultaneously, as an effective, soft-approach and low-regret strategy to overcome the barriers to adaptation action. These solutions provide a general framework allowing a flexible and customized support for human systems in adapting to unavoidable impacts of climate change.

International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration. Second edition

Ecological restoration, when implemented effectively and sustainably, contributes to protecting biodiversity; improving human health and wellbeing; increasing food and water security; delivering goods, services, and economic prosperity; and supporting climate change mitigation, resilience, and adaptation. It is a solutions-based approach that engages communities, scientists, policymakers, and land managers to repair ecological damage and rebuild a healthier relationship between people and the rest of nature. When combined with conservation and sustainable use, ecological restoration is the link needed to move local, regional, and global environmental conditions from a state of continued degradation, to one of net positive improvement. The second edition of the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (the Standards) presents a robust framework for restoration projects to achieve intended goals, while addressing challenges including effective design and implementation, accounting for complex ecosystem dynamics (especially in the context of climate change), and navigating trade-offs associated with land management priorities and decisions.

Improving the quality of life in cities using community gardens: from benefits for members to benefits for all local residents

Abstract Recent effects of globalization, urbanization and climate change have resulted in an increasing interest in the quality of life in cities and seeking pathways for its improvement. At the same time, there are changes in society and lifestyles that may challenge or facilitate these pathways. Community gardens (CGs) represent an effort to provide more sustainable urban economies, while reflecting on the public demand for cultivation of own crops. However, members of CGs may not perceive all the benefits that CGs provide for their surroundings. Using two case studied from Czechia (CG Kuchyňka and CG Vidimova in Prague) the aim of this paper is a comparison of the benefits perceived by community garden members and the evaluated net social benefits of community gardens in cities for all local residents. Through a questionnaire survey, the paper answers the research question of the benefits of community gardens perceived by community garden members. An economic assessment based on cost-benefit analysis was made to answer the question of the value of the net social benefits of community gardens in cities. Our comparison shows that the net social benefits are higher than perceived by their members. Net present benefits of EUR 31 550 for CG Kuchyňka and EUR 1 175 for CG Vidimova were quantified in a 50-year horizon. This economic analysis should contribute to greater support for community gardens by city governments and spatial planners.

Noise reduction for ballasted track: A comparative socio-economic assessment

Transport infrastructure produces many externalities. Increased accessibility and the resultant economic development are among the most notable positive ones. Accidents, air and noise pollution and other environmental issues, such as impacts on biodiversity, landscape and townscape, are the most important negative ones. In the case of railway infrastructure, noise impacts have a key effect on net social benefit. Noise reduction is crucial to achieve greater social benefits. Against this background, the University of Southampton has been undertaking the Track to the Future (T2F) project, which is assessing, among other issues, how to produce a quiet ballasted track system that at the same time is cheaper to maintain and renew. This paper considers combinations of engineering interventions that could reduce rail-related noise, including under sleeper pads, rail dampers and noise barriers which all reduce noise emissions. It extends previous analysis of under sleeper pads to compare their costs and benefits with those of rail dampers and noise barriers in the context of a UK-based installation case study.

A social cost-benefit analysis of two One Health interventions to prevent toxoplasmosis.

In the Netherlands, toxoplasmosis ranks second in disease burden among foodborne pathogens with an estimated health loss of 1,900 Disability Adjusted Life Years and a cost-of-illness estimated at €45 million annually. Therefore, effective and preferably cost-effective preventive interventions are warranted. Freezing meat intended for raw or undercooked consumption and improving biosecurity in pig farms are promising interventions to prevent Toxoplasma gondii infections in humans. Putting these interventions into practice would expectedly reduce the number of infections; however, the net benefits for society are unknown. Stakeholders bearing the costs for these interventions will not necessary coincide with the ones having the benefits. We performed a Social Cost-Benefit Analysis to evaluate the net value of two potential interventions for the Dutch society. We assessed the costs and benefits of the two interventions and compared them with the current practice of education, especially during pregnancy. A ‘minimum scenario’ and a ‘maximum scenario’ was assumed, using input parameters with least benefits to society and input parameters with most benefits to society, respectively. For both interventions, we performed different scenario analyses. The freezing meat intervention was far more effective than the biosecurity intervention. Despite high freezing costs, freezing two meat products: steak tartare and mutton leg yielded net social benefits in both the minimum and maximum scenario, ranging from €10.6 million to €31 million for steak tartare and €0.6 million to €1.5 million for mutton leg. The biosecurity intervention would result in net costs in all scenarios ranging from €1 million to €2.5 million, due to high intervention costs and limited benefits. From a public health perspective (i.e. reducing the burden of toxoplasmosis) and the societal perspective (i.e. a net benefit for the Dutch society) freezing steak tartare and leg of mutton is to be considered.

Seeking natural capital projects: Forest fires, haze, and early-life exposure in Indonesia

Natural capital will be depleted rapidly and excessively if the long-term, offsite impacts of depletion are ignored. By examining the case of tropical forest burning, we illustrate such myopia: Pursuit of short-term economic gains results in air pollution that causes long-term, irreversible health impacts. We integrate longitudinal data on prenatal exposure to the 1997 Indonesian forest fires with child nutritional outcomes and find that mean exposure to air pollution during the prenatal stage is associated with a half-SD decrease in height-for-age z score at age 17, which is robust to several statistical checks. Because adult height is associated with income, this implies a loss of 4% of average monthly wages for approximately one million Indonesian workers born during this period. To put these human capital losses in the context of policy making, we conduct social cost–benefit analyses of oil palm plantations under different scenarios for clearing land and controlling fires. We find that clearing for oil palm plantations using mechanical methods generates higher social net benefits compared with clearing using fires. Oil palm producers, however, would be unwilling to bear the higher private costs of mechanical clearing. Therefore, we need more effective fire bans, fire suppression, and moratoriums on oil palm in Indonesia to protect natural and human capital, and increase social welfare.

The Evolution of Private Provision in Urban Drinking Water: New Geographies, Institutional Ambiguity and the Need for Political Economy

ABSTRACTEmpirical research paints a dynamic picture of the evolution of private provision in urban drinking water. A second wave of privatisation is clustered in a key group of countries, distinguished by the rise of new domestic private and quasi-private providers. This is, however, taking place in the presence of a counter-dynamic of remunicipalisation. In response to the complexity in provision arrangements revealed, three case studies are used to illustrate how different power balance configurations in the state-society-capital complex inform particular institutional arrangements. In Germany, civil society pressure challenged private capital resulting in the reinstatement of municipal control in Berlin, but at high long-term costs. In Russia, disempowered civil society has watched as the ruling regime exploits the support of international public agencies and foreign investors, while carefully safeguarding the interests of domestic private capital. In China, different levels of the state have promoted quasi-state actors into global corporations, managing the entry of international capital in order to bolster domestic support for desired political reforms. Public responsibility, and equally the re-assertion of public control after a period of private provision, may not in itself secure net social benefit where the right of capital to profit is put before broader social considerations.

Assessing the social cost and benefits of a national requirement establishing antibiotic stewardship programs to prevent Clostridioides difficile infection in US hospitals

BackgoundEconomic evaluations of interventions to prevent healthcare-associated infections in the United States rarely take the societal perspective and thus ignore the potential benefits of morbidity and mortality risk reductions. Using new Department of Health and Human Services guidelines for regulatory impact analysis, we developed a cost-benefit analyses of a national multifaceted, in-hospital Clostridioides difficile infection prevention program (including staffing an antibiotic stewardship program) that incorporated value of statistical life estimates to obtain economic values associated with morbidity and mortality risk reductions.MethodsWe used a net present value model to assess costs and benefits associated with antibiotic stewardship programs. Model inputs included treatment costs, intervention costs, healthcare-associated Clostridioides difficile infection cases, attributable deaths, and the value of statistical life which was used to estimate the economic value of morbidity and mortality risk reductions.ResultsFrom 2015 to 2020, total net benefits of the intervention to the healthcare system range from $300 million to $7.6 billion when values for morbidity and mortality risk reductions are ignored. Including these values, the net social benefits of the intervention range from $21 billion to $624 billion with the annualized net benefit of $25.5 billion under our most likely outcome scenario.ConclusionsIncorporating the economic value of morbidity and mortality risk reductions in economic evaluations of healthcare-associated infections will significantly increase the benefits resulting from prevention.

Government Policy to Counter Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria: Should Incentives to Develop New Antibiotics Be in the Mix?

In recent years there has been growing concern in the medical community about bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to existing ABs. Numerous recent reports authored by government agencies, international government organizations, and private advocacy groups have called for governments to do more to address the problem. Policies are being advocated to slow the growth of resistance by better controlling the spread of infection and using existing ABs more judiciously, and also to promote the development of more ABs. There is unquestionably a need for government actions to slow the growth of resistance, but beyond subsidizing basic research the case for government policies to promote the development of new antibiotics (ABs) is not straightforward. An AB developer can be expected to pursue all AB leads for which the expected discounted value of the AB’s sales exceeds the expected discounted value of development and manufacturing costs. As there are generally no notable external costs associated with AB development, an AB developer will make socially optimal AB development decisions provided the price that can be charged for a prospective AB is commensurate with AB’s social value. Hence any argument for government subsidies of AB development must identify reasons for why AB developers cannot charge prices that are commensurate with social value. The paper analyses AB price determination and the possibility that the unfettered private market will not pursue AB development projects with expected positive net social benefits. It is concluded that modest changes in U.S. government policy might be advisable. In particular, there may be some justification for extending the period of patent protection for ABs, and for reforming how Medicare reimburses hospitals for AB use. And if compelling evidence can be marshalled showing that AB use significantly reduces contagion, government-funded top-ups of AB prices might also be justified. The paper rejects the common policy prescription that AB developer profits somehow be wholly or partially “de-linked” from the number of treatments.

Nonresponsiveness, Severity Auditing, and Upcoding Deterrence

In many countries, the diagnosis-related group system has been expanded to address patient severity. This paper highlights a fundamental drawback of any price refinement policy under adverse selection. Without auditing, no mechanism such that high-severity patients receive more intensive treatment than low-severity patients can ensure that providers are deterred from upcoding. In contrast, we show that splitting can be implemented if the regulator designs an auditing mechanism when the proportion of low-severity patients is sufficiently high. The optimal level of services increases with severity under conditions depending on the net social benefit function and on the cost function.

Comparing Social Costs of the Conventional Rice Production System and System of Rice Intensification: A Case Study of Indonesia

The rice production process generated negative environmental exter­nalities. These externalities were considered as a cost and not accounted by mar­ket price and the economic value of externalities was indefinite. The objective of this study was to calculate and internalize negative externalities costs into pro­duction costs of the System of Rice Intensification and conventional rice produc­tion system. The quantities of externalities measured in this research were CH 4 , N 2 O, SO 2 , NO x , and PM 10 . This research used Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), damage cost approach, and social costs concept. This research was conducted at Dlingo Village in Boyolali District, Central Java Province. The results showed that the private cost per kg unhulled rice was 1,529 IDR and damage cost was 9 IDR/kg. Social costs of producing 1 kg unhulled rice was 1,539 IDR or 9.60 million IDR/ha/season. SRI’s farmers received net social benefit 18.04 million IDR/ha/season. Considering that the target of extended area for SRI in 2015 was 200,000 ha, the government could receive environmental benefits 44.51 billion IDR. The benefits can be obtained through world carbon trading process and used as incentives for organic farmers.