While the mortality impacts of urban air pollution have been well addressed in the literature, very little is known about the mortality impacts and associated social cost from wildfire-smoke exposure (Kochi et al., 2010; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004). In an attempt to address this...

There is a growing concern that human health impacts from exposure to wildfire smoke are ignored in estimates of monetized damages from wildfires. Current research highlights the need for better data collection and analysis of these impacts. Using unique primary data, this paper quantifies the...

Estimating the economic benefits of reduced health damages due to improvements in environmental quality continues to challenge economists. We review welfare measures associated with reduced wildfire smoke exposure, and a unique dataset from California’s Station Fire of 2009 allows for a...

We empirically investigate the effect of the payment mechanism on contingent values by asking a willingness-to-pay question with one of three different payment mechanisms: individual contribution, contribution with provision point, and referendum. We find statistical evidence of more affirmative...

The charter forest experiment at the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) in New Mexico provides land managers, policymakers, and researchers a unique opportunity to examine an alternative public land management institution. The VCNP mature bull elk permit lottery has been the largest...

In 2000, concerned about the risks of wildfires to local homes, the Colorado Springs Fire Department rated the wildfire risk of 35,000 housing parcels within the wildland-urban interface and made its findings available online. We examine the effectiveness of this rating project by comparing the...

This study uses actual payments toward the provision of a public good to compare dichotomous choice and payment card formats. The public good in question is the environmental improvement from wind generation of electric power. We find that willingness-to-pay estimates vary with the elicitation...

Several contingent valuation studies have found that the open-ended format yields lower estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) than does the closed-ended, or dichotomous choice, format. In this study, WTP for a public environmental good was estimated under four conditions: actual payment in...