Abstract Reducing greenhouse gas emissions not only lowers expected damages from climate change but also reduces the risk of catastrophic impacts. However, estimates of the social cost of carbon, which measures the marginal value of carbon dioxide abatement, often do not capture this risk...

This paper reviews implementation of the risk management frameworks used by eight federal and foreign agencies - including the Minerals Management Service (MMS, now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, or BOEMRE) - and summarizes the features of a robust tolerable...

This study examines the redistributional effects of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) using a national database of premium, coverage, and claim payments at the county level between 1980 and 2006. Measuring progressivity as the departure from per capita county income proportionality, we...

With respect to the pricing of insurance, there is often tension between setting premiums that reflect risk and dealing with equity/affordability issues. The National Flood Insurance Program in the United States has recently shifted toward elimination of certain premium discounts which has...

This paper identifies a novel function for permits: they can be used by the government as an instrument to elicit information about the intentions of private investors to put capital into an area. Such information is a crucial input for the government's decision on how much infrastructure to...

The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), housed in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has been providing flood insurance to households and businesses for almost 50 years. To inform the policy discussion leading up to reauthorization, this paper analyzes five aspects of the NFIP:...

Hurricane Katrina did massive damage because New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were not appropriately protected. Wherever natural disasters threaten, the government -- in its traditional role as public goods provider -- must decide what level of protection to provide to an area. It does so by...

As recent hurricane seasons have made clear, flooding can cause a great deal of property damage and human suffering. Indeed, flooding causes the most damage of any natural disaster in the United States and worldwide and affects the greatest number of people. Yet today most households are...