For research on the environmental impacts of a transition to a clean-energy economy, please go to the Green Economics page.

October 2010 -- In recent years, the core objective of development assistance to postconflict countries and fragile states has been building governance structures that secure public confidence through security, justice, economic well-being, and social services. Yet tensions persist between these objectives and the business-as-usual policies of international agencies. In this background paper for the World Bank’s World Development Report 2011, James K. Boyce and Shepard Forman consider how international aid can more effectively help build resilient states and durable peace. They discuss the need to strike a balance between prioritizing aid to ‘good performers’ to maximize economic growth, and providing aid to ‘poor performers’ to prevent conflict and build peace.

>> Download "Financing Peace: International and National Resources for Postconflict Countries and Fragile States"

July 2010 -- Michael Ash, James Boyce, Grace Chang and Helen Scharber examine how exposure to toxic air pollution from industrial facilities in the U.S. varies according to race, ethnicity, income and other factors. Using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators project, the authors find that, in keeping with prior research, within any given urban area, racial and ethnic minorities tend to face greater exposure to these toxins. But they go on to find that the extent of the disparity of exposure in an urban area is positively correlated with levels of exposure: when wide racial and ethnic disparities in exposure levels are found, average exposures tend to be higher not only for minorities but for whites as well.

>> Download "Is Environmental Justice Good for White Folks?

March 2010 -- The Toxic 100 Air Polluters index identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world's largest corporations. The index relies on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators, which assesses the chronic human health risk from industrial toxic releases.

In this third release of the index, for the first time the project directors, James K. Boyce & Michael Ash, have included information on the disproportionate risk burden from industrial air toxics for minorities and low-income communities. This makes it possible to compare corporations and facilities in terms of their environmental justice performance as well as their overall contribution to chronic
human health risk.

>> Go to the Toxic 100 Air Polluters website

March 2010 -- Congress is expected to take up the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act in the coming months. In preparation for that debate, James K. Boyce and Matthew E. Riddle have updated earlier analyses of the household-level impacts of the cap-and-dividend plan, and how these differ among states. In their newest paper, the authors not only consider the specific parameters of the CLEAR Act, but also add an assessment of the state-by-state job creation from the bill.

Boyce & Riddle find that interstate differences in the bill’s impact on household incomes are small: much smaller than differences across the income spectrum, and vastly smaller than the differences in other federal programs, such as defense spending. As a result, the CLEAR Act delivers positive net benefits to the majority of households  in every state. Where there are interstate differences, Boyce & Riddle suggest ways in which the CLEAR Act could be modified to reduce or eliminate them altogether.

>> Download "Clear Economics: State-Level Impacts of the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act  on Family Incomes and Jobs"

August 2009 -- This new study by James Boyce and Matthew Riddle (in partnership with the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network) shows how the increased cost of fossil fuels created by a carbon cap policy could be distributed across the population, based on the carbon footprints of households in different income brackets in each state.

With a carbon price of $25 per ton, Boyce & Riddle estimate that the annual cost to the median family ranges from $239 per person in Oregon to $349 in Indiana. Under cap-and-dividend, each person would receive dividend payments of $386 per year. The median family would end up with a net gain ranging from $37 per person in Indiana to $147 in Oregon, in addition to the benefits of curbing global warming,

At the same time a cap-and-dividend policy would send a clear price signal that burning fossil fuels has a social cost, giving businesses and consumers a strong incentive to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy.

>> Download “Cap and Dividend: A State-by-State Analysis”
>> Learn more about cap and dividend
>> Download the press release
>> Learn more about the Economics for Equity and the Environment (E3) Network
>> Download Professor Boyce's testimony on cap-and-dividend before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee

April 2009 -- Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods uses the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory and Risk Screening Environmental Indicators to explore the demographics of those who are most affected by toxic pollution, and then establishes the corporate ownership of the plants responsible.   

Justice in the Air enhances the data available in PERI’s Toxic 100 Report with an environmental justice scorecard, ranking the Toxic 100 companies by the share of their health impacts from toxic air pollution that falls upon minority and low-income communities.

>> Read more about Justice in the Air