Environmental Policy Research

EPR Networks

CEPM's Environmental Policy Research focus has pursued two distinct strands of analytical efforts:

• Research on existing policies and programs and their effects; and
• Analysis of prospective policies and future environmental conditions that might be expected to arise, given existing practices and priorities.

Activities associated with Environmental Policy Research have involved two distinct strands of analytical efforts. We have conducted research on existing policies and programs and their effects, and we have studied prospective policies and future environmental conditions that might be expected given existing practices and priorities. Studies of existing policies and programs, excluding the brownfields work and other environmental finance matters, have been internally financed and supported for the most part. The range of issues considered has included analysis of:

• Recycling Programs and Household Participation
• Public Sector Purchasing and Recycled Product Markets
• Production Management Practices Responding to Environmental Regulations
• Community Risk Perception and Environmental Concerns
• Local Green Planning and Environmental Policy–Making
• Community Valuation of Environmental and Economic Development Goods
• The Limits and Contributions of Cost–Benefit Analysis of Environmental Policies

Environmental Forecasting efforts grew out of an initial project conducted in conjunction with the Kentucky Comparative Risk Project, supported by the US EPA. Work under contract and in later analysis has included:

• Development of methods to extract consensus forecasts of desired economic changes from public and private leaders with different environment concerns
• Simulation of economic restructurings using REMI econometric models
• Examination of changes in environmental impacts from economic activity that can be attained from different policy interventions such as:
  –environmental education directed at changing consumer and producer tastes and attitudes; and
  –dissemination of information about, and provision of needed financing for, adoption of best available environmentally protective technologies.