Energy Economics and Finance Seminar
Event Summary
The seminar series in Energy Economics & Finance (EEF) is jointly organized by Wharton’s Business Economics and Public Policy Department, the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, and Wharton’s Business, Climate and Environment Lab. The scope of the seminar includes regulation and policy papers. The scope of the seminar also includes environmental and transportation issues, as long as there is a connection with energy. Sessions are biweekly on Mondays from 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
For Fall 2021, the seminar will be a combination of in-person and virtual talks. In-person talks will be held at JMHH G90 while virtual ones will meet via Zoom. Meeting links and passcodes for virtual talks are required in order to join and will be included in the emailed meeting announcement prior to each session.
Find and add a Google Calendar version of the schedule on the BEPP seminar page.
To sign up for the seminar, please send your name, email, and affiliation to Dhivya Kaushik: dhivya@wharton.upenn.edu
Talk Title: Threshold-based Regulations and Reporting Behavior: Evidence from the Lead and Copper Rule*
Abstract: For several threshold-based environmental regulations, regulatory stringency changes sharply at an arbitrary threshold of size or an environmental outcome potentially incentivizing agents to take undesirable actions that ensure they are on the favorable side of the cutoff. There is anecdotal evidence that public water systems (PWS) regulated under the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) engage in improper sampling and monitoring practices to ensure they are below the thresholds contained in the rule. Improper reporting practices in this context are of concern because they may mask the true risk drinking water poses. In this paper, we document data irregularities and examine the reporting behavior of small, medium, and large water systems during the 2011-2020 period. We employ a censored maximum likelihood approach to quantify the magnitude of data manipulation around the thresholds. Preliminary results indicate there are data irregularities and data manipulation around the thresholds. We explore heterogeneity across socioeconomic characteristics and propose changes to reporting requirements that facilitate the detection of manipulation.
*Joint with Dalia Ghanem, David Keiser, Gabriel Lade
Tihitina Andarge
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, UMass-AmherstTihitina (Tina) Andarge is a post-doctoral research associate in the department of resource economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned her Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Maryland in 2020.
Fall 2021 Seminar Schedule
- 9/27: Ishan Nath, Princeton University
- 10/11: Tihitina Andarge, UMass-Amherst
- 10/18: Lucas Davis, UC-Berkeley
- 10/25: Francisco Costa, University of Delaware
- 11/8: Paige Weber, UNC-Chapel Hill
- 11/15: Sam Stolper, University of Michigan
