Ranking Distributions of Environmental Outcomes Across Population Groups

Glenn Sheriff and Kelly Maguire

No 280914, National Center for Environmental Economics-NCEE Working Papers from United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Abstract: This paper develops methods for evaluating distributional impacts of alternative environmental policies across demographic groups. The income inequality literature provides a natural methodological toolbox for comparing distributions of environmental outcomes. We show that the most commonly used inequality indexes, such as the Atkinson index, have theoretical properties that make them inappropriate for analyzing bads, like pollution, as opposed to goods, like income. We develop a transformation of the Atkinson index suitable for analyzing bad outcomes. We also show how the rarely used Kolm-Pollak index is particularly convenient for ranking distributions of both good and bad health and environmental outcomes. We demonstrate these methods in the context of emissions standards affecting indoor air quality.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49
Date: 2013-08
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:nceewp:280914

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.280914

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