Quasi-experimental and experimental approaches to environmental economics

Michael Greenstone and Ted Gayer

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2009, vol. 57, issue 1, 21-44

Abstract: This paper argues that an increased application of quasi-experimental and experimental techniques will improve understanding about core environmental economics questions. This argument is supported by a review of the limitations of associational evidence in assessing causal hypotheses. The paper also discusses the benefits of experiments and quasi-experiments, outlines some quasi-experimental methods, and highlights threats to their validity. It then illustrates the quasi-experimental method by assessing the validity of a quasi-experiment that aims to estimate the impact of the Endangered Species Act on property markets in North Carolina. The paper's larger argument is that greater application of experimental and quasi-experimental techniques can identify efficient policies that increase social welfare.

Keywords: Endangered; species; Property; markets; Quasi-experiments; Natural; experiments; Randomized; experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (114)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095-0696(08)00083-1
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Quasi-Experimental and Experimental Approaches to Environmental Economics (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:57:y:2009:i:1:p:21-44

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().