Ranking Distributions of Environmental Outcomes Across Population Groups

Glenn Sheriff and Kelly Maguire ()

No 201304, NCEE Working Paper Series from National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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 justice; distributional analysis; inequality indexes; Lorenz curves; benefit-cost analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D61 D63 Q52 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2013-08, Revised 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp201304

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