Stop human air pollution (breaking wind) now - the Malawi experiment

A new policy in Malawi may have made breaking wind in public a criminal offense. I am all for it especially in lectures, classrooms and most importantly in staff meetings.

It is amusing (in a broad sense) that the BBC chose to picture someone holding their nose to illustrate this story.

Collecting evidence of such criminal behaviour must be a little tricky.

Malawi row over whether new law bans farting

Two of Malawi's most senior judicial officials are arguing over whether a new bill includes a provision that outlaws breaking wind in public.

Justice Minister George Chaponda says the new bill would criminalise flatulence to promote "public decency".

"Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting," he told local radio.

However, he was directly contradicted by Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga, who says the reference to "fouling the air" means pollution.

"How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalising farting in public is beyond me," he said, adding that the prohibition contained in the new law has been in place since 1929.

The Local Courts Bill, to be introduced next week reads: "Any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the public to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

Mr Chaponda, a trained lawyer, insists that this includes farting.

"Would you be happy to see people farting anyhow?" he asked on the popular "Straight Talk" programme on Malawi's Capital Radio.

He said that local chiefs would deal with any offenders.

When asked whether it could be enforced, he said it would be similar to laws banning urinating in public.

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Per capita carbon

A fantastic graphic (HT: Env-econ) that clearly shows why the odds of finding a climate solution are so distant.

Simply look at the China circle on both pictures and there is your answer.

Click HERE for a large version.

Those naughtly Gibratarians.

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Sleep or slaughter?

The following two links are to provide readers with a Friday night choice.

Offering number 1

The 7 sleepiest animals on earth (with photographs)

Offering number 2

Shocking images from inside Britain's slaughter houses (with photos and videos)


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Cap and Trade is DEAD

A 10 minute lesson for all - students, academics, everyone.

You can never have enough cartoons. Hopefully a "carbon tax" that might actually work will come to be the accepted solution (eventually - by which point it will be too late).



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Man Friday post - The First Globalization Debate

Any academic paper that can link globalisation and a riveting read is good by me. Having read the first book last year sometime I admit to not putting the book in the context of globalisation and cannot recall how the book links to the gains from international trade even though I teach this stuff. I now feel that I must reread the book with this new found knowledge.

A great idea for a paper. See what I did with the title of this post?

"The First Globalization Debate"

Economic Research Initiatives at Duke (ERID) Working Paper No. 88

CRAUFURD GOODWIN, Duke University - Department of Economics

Email: GOODWIN@ECON.DUKE.EDU

Early in the 18th century, before the birth of political economy as a discipline, two of the earliest novels in the English language were published: Robinson Crusoe (1719) by writer and economic entrepreneur Daniel Defoe, and Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by the cleric and political adviser Jonathan Swift. The first was widely perceived as an entertaining adventure story, the latter as a pioneering work of science fiction. Both contain indirect comment on the foreign policy of Britain at the time. When viewed from the perspective of the modern economist, however, the works appear to be expressions of opposing positions on the desirability of a nation pursuing integration within a world economy. Crusoe demonstrated the gains from international trade and colonization and even the attendant social and political benefits. He explores the instinct to trade overseas, stages of growth, and the need for careful cost-benefit calculations. By contrast Swift warned of the complex entanglements that would arise from globalization, especially with foreign leaders who operated from theory and models rather than common sense. He makes a case for economic autarky.

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"Value of statistical life": Does the cause of death matter?

Having published a VSL paper and wanting to do more (the work is somewhat down the queue at the moment along with more proactive blogging) I always had a nagging doubt about the whole process of calculating VSLs and why they should differ across countries and levels of development.

The VSL is closely related to the environment especially when it comes to environmental regulation - it regs save lives then they can be justified - but how many lives and at what cost?

After the mega-catastophies post (see below) what better way to begin the year than seeing how VSL is influenced by the cause of death. My pre-reading intuition would be that it will matter but I am not convinced that it should.

Happy new year.

Does the Cause of Death Matter? The Effect of Dread, Controllability, Exposure and Latency on the VSL

Anna Alberini
Milan Scasny

November 17, 2010

FEEM Working Paper No. 139.2010

Abstract:
The Value of a Statistical Life is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives. To date, the VSL used in environmental policy analyses has not been adjusted for age or the cause of death. Air pollution regulations, however, are linked to reductions in the risk of dying for cancer, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses, raising the question whether a single VSL should be applied for all of these causes of death. We conducted a conjoint choice experiment survey in Milan, Italy, to investigate this question. We find that the VSL increases with dread, exposure, the respondents’ assessments of the baseline risks, and experience with the specific risks being studied. The VSL is higher when the risk reduction is delivered by a public program, and increases with the effectiveness rating assigned by the respondent to public programs that address specific causes of death. The effectiveness of private risk-reducing behaviors is also positively associated with the VSL, but the effect is only half as large as that of public program effectiveness. The coefficients on dummies for the cause of death per se – namely, whether it’s cancer, a road traffic accident or a respiratory illness – are strongly statistically significant. All else the same, the fact that the cause of the death is “cancer” results in a VSL that is almost one million euro above the amount predicted by dread, exposure, beliefs, etc. The VSL in the road safety context is about one million euro less than what is predicted by dread, exposure, beliefs, etc. These effects are large, but the majority of the variation in the VSL is accounted for by the public program feature, the effectiveness of public programs at reducing the indicated risk, and dread. The effects of exposure and experience are smaller. These results raise the question whether using VSL figures based on private risk reduction, which is usually recommended to avoid double-counting, severely understates how much a society might be willing to pay for public safety.

Keywords: VSL, Conjoint Choice Experiments, Mortality Risk Reductions, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Forced Choice Questions

JEL Classifications: I18, J17, K32, Q51
Working Paper Series

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Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes

There is nothing like a paper on "mega-catastrophes" to begin the new year with a bang. Excellent work.

The small but uncertain possibility that the world could be ending as we know should appeal to economists everywhere.

Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes [PDF]

Carolyn Kousky, Olga Rostapshova, Michael Toman, and Richard Zeckhauser

Abstract
There is a low but uncertain probability that climate change could trigger “mega-catastrophes,” severe and at least partly irreversible adverse effects across broad regions. This paper first discusses the state of current knowledge and the defining characteristics of potential climate change mega-catastrophes. While some of these characteristics present difficulties for using standard rational choice methods to
evaluate response options, there is still a need to balance the benefits and costs of different possible responses with appropriate attention to the uncertainties. To that end, we present a qualitative analysis of three options for mitigating the risk of climate mega-catastrophes—drastic abatement of greenhouse gas emissions, development and implementation of geoengineering, and large-scale ex ante adaptation— against the criteria of efficacy, cost, robustness, and flexibility. We discuss the composition of a sound portfolio of initial investments in reducing the risk of climate change mega-catastrophes.

Key Words: climate change, catastrophe, risk, decisionmaking under uncertainty
JEL Classification Numbers: D81, Q54