Determining the Proper Scope of Climate Change Policy Benefits in U.S. Regulatory Analyses: Domestic versus Global Approaches

Ted Gayer and W Viscusi

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2016, vol. 10, issue 2, 245-263

Abstract: Although benefit assessment principles are well established for specific populations, very little attention has been paid to how to define the scope of the pertinent population for such assessments. Whose social welfare matters and whose benefits should be included in the assessment? Should there be any linkage between the benefits and the political jurisdiction of the citizens paying for the policy? In the case of U.S. regulatory policies, the norm has been to assess the benefits to U.S. citizens. However, in 2010, the Obama administration’s Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon adopted a global perspective on assessing the benefits associated with reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. This article examines whether U.S. policymakers should assess the benefits of climate change policies from a domestic or a global perspective. Drawing from executive orders and the laws governing risk and environmental regulations, we review the norms used for the scope of benefit assessments. Then we examine specific examples of the use of the global approach to benefit assessments of carbon dioxide reductions for energy efficiency regulations. We also compare the U.S. approach to that of other developed countries. Finally, we discuss how reciprocity should be incorporated into global benefits within a benefit–cost framework, and the role of altruism in considering the proper scope of benefits.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/reep/rew002 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:renvpo:v:10:y:2016:i:2:p:245-263.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy is currently edited by Robert Stavins

More articles in Review of Environmental Economics and Policy from Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().