Maureen L. Cropper

I am an environmental economist whose research has focused on valuing non-market benefits associated with environmental improvements-primarily health benefits, such as increases in life expectancy associated with reductions in air and water pollution, and reductions risk of chronic illness associated with improvements in air quality. Some of this research has been theoretical-analyzing how the value of reductions in risk of death should vary over the life cycle-and some empirical-attempting to estimate what people will pay for reductions in their risk of dying, and to see how these values vary with a person's age and how far in the future the risk reduction occurs. These estimates are used in cost-benefit analyses of health and safety regulations by the USEPA and other agencies. Another strand of my research has analyzed regulatory decisions issued by the USEPA to infer the value of lives saved implicit in these regulations. In many cases, these values are much greater than what individuals would themselves pay for risk reductions. Other research has focused on inferring the value of environmental amenities from housing prices and from migration decisions. More recently, I have analyzed preferences for environmental and safety improvements in developing countries.