Environmental Policy Analysis for Decision Making

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. What Is Policy Analysis, and What Is Its Role in the Policy Process?

   Pages 1-17

3. Scoping the Policy Analysis

   Pages 19-31

4. Decision Criteria and Decision Methods for Policy Analysis

   Pages 33-54

5. Steps in Conducting an Environmental Policy Analysis

   Pages 55-61

6. Modeling

   Pages 63-76

7. Statistical Analysis Using Regression

   Pages 77-104

8. Principles of Benefit-Cost Analysis

   Pages 105-140

9. Discounting Benefits and Costs Over Time

   Pages 141-157

10. Valuation of Environmental Resources and Quality

    Pages 159-212

11. Regional Economic Analysis, Input-Output Models and Multipliers

    Pages 213-239

12. Optimization and Linear Programming

    Pages 241-266

13. Risk Analysis

    Pages 267-289

14. Examples of Policy Analyses

    Pages 291-310

15. Concluding Guidance

    Pages 311-316

16. Back Matter

    Pages 317-329

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1. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ANALYSIS: WHAT AND WHY? Why environmental policy analysis? Environmental issues are growing in visibility in local, national, and world arenas, as a myriad of human activities leads to increased impacts on the natural world. Issues such as climate change, endangered species, wilderness protection, and energy use are regularly on the front pages of newspapers. Governments at all levels are struggling with how to address these issues. Environmental policy analysis is intended to present the environmental and social impacts of policies, in the hope that better decisions will result when people have better information on which to base those decisions. Conducting environmental policy analysis requires people who understand what it is and how to do it. Interpreting it also requires those skills. We hope that this book will increase the abilities, both of analysts and of decision-makers, to understand and interpret the impacts of environmental policies. Policy analysis books almost invariably begin by pointing out that policy analysis can take many forms. This book is no different. As you will see in Chapter 1, we consider policy analysis to be information provided for the policy process. That information can take many forms, from sophisticated empirical analysis to general theoretical results, from summary statistics to game theoretic strategies.

• Policy
• environment
• environmental policy
• risk analysis
• ecotoxicology

`...this book provides in one volume a comprehensive overview of the practical issues involved and the tools available for use in the environmental policy making arena and is particularly recommended as a text which brings to life the complex and interesting world of policy analysis.'
Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 46:4 (2003)

• Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University, Colorado, USA

  John Loomis

• School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan, Michigan, USA

  Gloria Helfand

Policies and ethics