Nicholas Muller

Member

Member

Advice

National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Research on Income and Wealth: Natural Capital Accounting. Co-Organizer

Growth, sustainability, and the measurement of global gross product by Aniruddh Mohan, Akshay Thyagarajan, Nicholas Muller 31 July 2020. The nexus of economic development and environmental impact is at the core of current policy debates. This is often captured by an ‘environmental Kuznets curve’, an inverted-U shaped relationship between income and pollution levels. This column argues that, in contrast to conventional approaches, sustainability analysis should focus on the monetary damages of pollution, rather than the physical tonnage of emissions. It highlights a large divergence in the Kuznets curves based on these two approaches. In addition, it proposes a measure of GDP growth which adjusts for monetary pollution damages.

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER): Recent Increases in Air Pollution: Evidence and Implications for Mortality. After declining by 24.2% from 2009 to 2016, annual average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United States in counties with monitors increased by 5.5% between 2016 and 2018. Increases occurred in multiple census regions and in counties that were in and out of attainment with National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). We explore channels through which the increase may have occurred including increases in economic activity, increases in wildfires, and decreases in Clean Air Act enforcement actions. The health implications of this increase in PM2.5 between 2016 and 2018 are significant. The increase was associated with 9,700 additional premature deaths in 2018. At conventional valuations, these deaths represent damages of $89 billion.

Agricultural and Resource Economics at NC State University - Triangle Resources and Environmental Economics Seminar Series: CEnREP partners with RTI International and Duke University to present the TREE Seminar Series. Muller presented on "Long Run Environmental Accounting in the United States Economy."

Metro21: Smart Cities Institute - Metro21 Lunch & Learn with Nick Muller: We're kick off the New Year with a new Metro21 Lunch & Learn! Join us on Friday January 18, 2019 from 12:00 - 1:00 PM in Hamburg Hall Room 1002 for this series titled "An Index for Economic and Environmental Performance: Methods with an Application to Pittsburgh" featuring Nick Muller, Lester and Judith Lave Associate Professor of Economics, Engineering, and Public Policy, Tepper School of Business, Department of Engineering and Public Policy. Muller will discuss traditional measures of economic output and performance focus on production and consumption activities within markets. Economists and policymakers have long-recognized that such metrics provide a limited glimpse of economic performance. One key area where market indices are deficient concerns environmental pollution. This research covers the techniques used to measure the consequences of pollution and how such impacts should be included in a comprehensive index. It provides an application to the U.S. economy over the past 20 years, and it applies the prototype index to the Pittsburgh economy over the last decade.

2016 Industrial Economics, Incorporated, Contractor to: State of Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. IN THE MATTER OF THE FURTHER INVESTIGATION INTO ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC COSTS UNDER MINNESOTA STATUTE 216B.2422, SUBDIVISION 3. MPUC Docket No. E999/CI14-643 OAH Docket No. 80-2500-31888.