IESR环境经济学讲座系列

IESR Environmental Economics Seminar Series 由暨南大学经济与社会研究院生态文明与环境经济学研究中心举办。讲座系列邀请环境经济学学者分享相关领域内的最新研究。

题目：What’s Missing in Environmental (Self-) Monitoring: Evidence from Strategic Shutdowns of Pollution Monitors

主讲人: Eric Zou, University of Oregon

时间：2021年6月15日，9:00 -10:30 (北京时间)

举办方式：线上讲座  

主讲人简介:

Eric Zou is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on pollution prevention; topics include detecting pollution sources, monitoring polluter behavior, and measuring health consequences. Before joining Oregon, Eric was a post-doctoral associate at Cornell Institute for China Economic Research. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. from East China Normal University.

Abstract:

Regulators often rely on self-reported data to determine compliance. Tolerance for missingness in self-monitoring data may create incentives for local agents to strategically decide when (not) to monitor regulated activities. This paper builds a framework to detect whether local governments skip air pollution monitoring when they expect air quality to deteriorate. We infer this expectation from air quality alerts – public advisories based on local governments’ own pollution forecasts – and test whether monitors’ sampling rates fall when these alerts occur. We first use this method to test an individual pollution monitor in Jersey City, NJ, suspected of a deliberate shutdown during the 2013 “Bridgegate” traffic jam. Consistent with strategic shutdowns, this monitor’s sampling rate drops by 33% on days that Jersey City issues pollution alerts. Building on large-scale inference tools, we then apply the method to test over 1,300 monitors across the U.S., finding at least 14 metro areas with clusters of monitors showing similar strategic behavior. We discuss imputation methods and policy responses that may help deter future strategic monitoring.

报名方式

非经济与社会研究院师生可扫描下方二维码参与本次讲座，报名截止时间为6月14日16:00（北京时间）。

生态文明与环境经济学中心（Center for Ecological Civilization and Environmental Economics ）成立于2019年4月。中心依托于暨南大学经济与社会研究院，旨在通过加强海内外交流合作，推动对中国生态文明与环境经济问题的研究。中心将致力于成为国际一流的高校科研中心，在产出一系列高水平学术研究成果的同时，结合国家及广东地区生态环境问题的现实需求开展政策研究。