How General Are Environmental Hazards?

About this event

How does accounting for a broad set of environmental hazards change answers to important economic questions? Spatial US data on air pollution, drinking and surface water pollution, extreme temperatures, floods, and wildfires reveal two results. First, mean correlations across environmental hazards are approximately zero in the cross-section or panel, limiting generalizability of conclusions from analysing a single hazard. Second, answers to several specific and classic economic questions do not easily generalize across hazards. Major recessions decrease air pollution but not other hazards. Spatial patterns of growth are increasing exposure to extreme heat but decreasing exposure to other hazards. Poor communities have higher exposure to nearly all hazards; Black and Hispanic communities do not. A spatial equilibrium model finds that these hazards have costs exceeding 2 percent of income and account for over 10 percent of population in many counties, though patterns vary considerably across hazards. Overall, analysing a single environmental good can provide inaccurate conclusions about broad environmental quality.