Environmental Policy Program¹
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

The Environmental Policy Program is a major research and training center that has the objective of enhancing the quality of environmental policy in the state, the nation and in countries throughout the world. Engaged in scholarly research projects focused on water resources, environmental and natural resources policy and management, the Program has provided policy advice to the government and private sectors since 1993.

The Program has established collaborative partnerships between other universities and organizations that include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as the University of Georgia and Emory University. The Program’s water resources consortium, the Georgia Water Planning & Policy Center, include partnerships with Albany State University (Flint River Water Planning & Policy Center), Georgia Southern University (Coastal Rivers Water Planning & Policy Center) and Georgia State University (North Georgia Water Planning & Policy Center, housed in the Environmental Policy Program). Each university center includes a research program and an academic program in Water Resources Management and Policy. The programs are available via videoconferencing and Internet technologies, offered in the evenings to accommodate the working student and career professionals.

Other major research areas in the Program include the management of Brownfields and the study of economic behavior in various policy settings. The Experimental Economics Laboratory maintains research and academic training in experimental economics. Degrees in Economics offer specializations in Environmental Policy, and culminate with a Ph.D. in Economics, with a specialization in Environmental Policy. Ronald G. Cummings is the Program's Director.

In This Page:

• Program
• Projects
• Proposals Under Review
• The Environmental and Experimental Economics Laboratory
• Publications

Programs

Brownfields Program. The Brownfields Project assists policymakers with new ideas in the economic management of revitalizing toxic industrial sites. The project uses a unique database of commercial and industrial properties in Atlanta to quantify the reduced economic potential of Brownfields and their possible spillover effects onto surrounding properties in the most comprehensive manner possible, and to disseminate this information in a manner that is accessible to policy makers, community leaders, and all stakeholders.

Joint Research with Georgia Southern University. Continued development of academic and certificate training programs in Water and Natural Resources Management with the Coastal Rivers Water Planning and Policy Center.

Joint Research with Albany State University. Continuation of development of graduate and certificate training programs in Water and Natural Resources Management with the Flint River Water Planning and Policy Center.

Environmental Damage Assessment Program. This program is focused on the development and application of innovative methods for assessing the value of environmental systems.

Projects

Agricultural Water Policy Research Center (U.S. Department of Agriculture). Ronald G. Cummings. Research and development for water planning in the coastal area of Georgia to assist stakeholders who rely upon the Floridan Aquifer. Renewal for second year, August 1, 2002-July 31, 2003. ($561,000) Renewal for third year, August 1, 2003-July 31, 2004. ($664, 891)

Innovative Water Policies (Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission). Ronald G. Cummings. Provide research and leadership in the study of alternative policies for water planning and management in Georgia. Renewal for second year, July 1, 2002-June 30, 2003. ($729,000) Renewal for third year, July 1, 2003-June 30, 2004. ($632,662)

Game Theory and Social Interaction (National Science Foundation). Susan Laury. A "virtual collaborotory" to study game theory using Web-based economics experiments. ($10,010) Renewal for second year, June 1-May 31, 2003. ($43,892) Renewal for third year, June 1-May 31, 2004. ($50,247)

Impact of Insurance Markets on Biases (National Science Foundation). Susan Laury. “Risky decision making in the presence of insurance markets,” August 2, 2002-July 31, 2003. ($36,735) Renewal for second year, August 1, 2003-July 31, 2004. ($29,434)

Experimental Tests of Provision Rules in Conjoint Applications for Environmental Valuation. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). Laura Taylor. ($129,000)

Virtual Players in Experimental Analyses of Human Decision-making. Paul Ferraro. Georgia State University Research Initiation grant. July 2002-June 2003. ($10,000)

Proposals Under Review

A Pilot Project For An Offset Banking Program in Georgia. (Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Challenge Grant) M. Bruce Beck (University of Georgia) and Ronald G. Cummings. Offset banking offers a means for achieving water quality standards at minimum cost by pairing high cost with low cost polluters in the design of a market system, approved by the EPA, to fit the ecological and economic needs of a region. ($50,000)

Altruism Spillovers: Does Laboratory Behavior Predict Charitable Giving? (National Science Foundation). Susan K. Laury and Laura O. Taylor. ($107,563)

Collaborative Research: Evaluating Payments for the Private Provision of Environmental Services. (National Science Foundation) Paul Ferraro, two-year project. Based on the advice of economists, conservation payments have become an increasingly popular policy instrument in both developed and developing nations to conserve ecosystems. The project will address the effectiveness of conservation payments through a rigorous and systematic empirical evaluation with a multi-disciplinary team of two economists and one forestry biometrician/GIS specialist. ($211,890)

An Empirical Evaluation of the Costa Rican Conservation Performance Payment Initiative Proposal to the Environment Department, World Bank. Paul Ferraro with S. Pattanayak and E. Ortiz. ($175,000)

Evaluating the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Sea Turtle Conservation. National Marine Fisheries Service. Paul Ferraro. ($58,000)

The Environmental and Experimental Economics Laboratory

With support from the Georgia Research Alliance, The Environmental & Experimental Economics Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility unique to the Southeast. It functions as a research center to assist in determining valuations for environmental damages, assessing market values for non-renewable resources and projecting future economic resource needs. Its primary use is for studies that focus on critical behavioral relationships between policy rules, individual perceptions of the incentives associated with these rules, and outcomes. Ronald G. Cummings is the Director of the Environmental & Experimental Economics Laboratory.

The lab provides a facility for research and teaching in the areas of environmental regulation compliance, non-market valuation, a transition to the use of markets, and collective decisions in the management of environmental resources. Critical policy questions concern the response of individuals to proposed policy initiatives. Through the laboratory, users gain insights into the impact of the use of markets for the trading of emissions and the extent of compliance with environmental regulations. The laboratory also allows evaluation of methods of obtaining individual valuation of environmental resources. For example, in the area of Fiscal Policy, it provides a means of testing the behavioral aspects of various programs designed to enhance tax compliance and of investigating the conditions under which voluntary contributions will be successful in providing collective goods.

The Portable Lab

The Portable Laboratory consists of 30 Pentium notebook subject stations, a notebook server and portable hubs. With travel cases designed specifically to transport the facility, staff can easily conduct laboratory experiments throughout the nation and abroad.

Laboratory Activities and Visitors

Ron Cummings demonstrated the Portable Lab at Southern Polytechnic University in Marietta, Ga., at the invitation of Professor Sandra Vasa-Sideris to introduce her class in public policy to the use of experimental methods in the study of policy design, February 20, 2003.

Susan Laury and Laura Taylor conducted Public Goods Experiments, February 26, 2003.

Susan Laury conducted experiments with 16 participants for two sessions, March 11, 2003.

Paul Ferraro conducted a series of experiments in group decision-making with 160 GSU students from April 1-10, 2003. The experiments were designed to understand behavior in a common experiment in which laboratory subjects could make substantially more money if they cooperate, but each has a private incentive to free-ride on the cooperation of others. The experiment was designed to distinguish altruistic motives and strategic motives for cooperation from decision-making errors.

Susan Laury, Laura Taylor and Ron Cummings conducted five sets of environmental evaluation experiments with a visiting Ph.D. student from Indiana University, April 3-4, 2003. The project is called "Altruism Spillovers," and a grant was submitted to the NSF based on the preliminary research results. A paper will be presented by Susan Laury at the American Economics Association meetings in San Diego, January 3, 2004.

Ragan Petrie conducted a series of experiments on trust with 182 GSU students in spring and fall 2003. The experiments are designed to understand whom we choose to trust and if we differentiate trust based on gender or race. By using digital photographs of subjects and varying who in the two-person trust game is seen, the experiments allow us to tease apart if trust is due to preferences or mislaid expectations on another person's trustworthiness.

Ron Cummings, Laura Taylor and Paul Ferraro made presentations to Arthur M. Blank Foundation representatives on environmental research needs in Georgia demonstrating how experimental economics and our faculty expertise play a role in problem solving, June 2003.

Ron Cummings conducted a set of tax compliance experiments to 16 Indonesian professionals taking training in tax policy to give them "hands-on" experience with effects of alternative tax policies on tax compliance, July 3, 2003.

Ron Cummings met with Dr. Priscilla Oliver, Georgia Environmental Protection Agency, to demonstrate the Laboratory and experimental economic theories to seven college interns, August 2003.

Laura Taylor with Mark Morrison (visiting from Charles Sturt University in New South Wales, Australia) conducted 33 in-class experiments with the help of Ikuho Kochi, Peter Grigelis, Angela Todd, and Jennifer Adams, from August 22-October 10, 2003. The experiments were part of the research conducted as part of the U.S. EPA grant, “Experimental Tests of Provisions Rules.”

Paul Ferraro met with Flint River Water Planning and Policy Center personnel, Drs. Virgil and Nancy Norton, to establish a research agenda for the rehabilitation of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp in southern Georgia.

Ragan Petrie and Susan Laury met with Professor Andy Keeler from the University of Georgia to collaborate on an experimental idea on testing upstream and downstream mechanisms for pollution control, October 29.

Environmental & Experimental Economics Forum
2003 Seminar Series

Publications

Water Policy Working Papers:

Environmental Policy Working Papers:

1. For a complete listing of AYSPS Active Research Sponsored Grants from CY2003, see the Appendix: Report on External Funding.