Nicholas Z. Muller

• MPA, PHD
• Professor at Middlebury College and The National Bureau of Economic Research

While air pollution from most U.S. sources has decreased, emissions from wildland fires have risen. Here, we use an integrated assessment model to estimate that wildfire and prescribed burn smoke caused $200 billion in health damages in 2017, associated with 20,000 premature deaths. Nearly half of this damage came from wildfires, predominantly in t...

This study investigates the role of hydrogen as a decarbonization strategy for the iron and steel industry in the United States (U.S.) in the presence of an economy-wide net zero CO2 emissions target. Our analysis shows that hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (H2DRI) provides a cost-effective decarbonization strategy only under a relatively narrow...

Deep decarbonization requires fundamental changes in meeting energy service demands, with some efforts increasing overall costs. Examining abatement measures in isolation, however, fails to capture their interactive effects within the energy system. Here we show the abatement costs of decarbonization in the United States using an energy system opti...

Energy system optimization models facilitate analyses on a national or regional scale. However, understanding the impacts of climate policy on specific populations requires a much higher spatial resolution. Here, we link an energy system optimization model to an integrated assessment model via an emission downscaling algorithm, translating air poll...

Coal is declining in the U.S. as part of the clean energy transition, resulting in remarkable air pollution benefits for the American public and significant costs for the industry. Using the AP3 integrated assessment model, we estimate that fewer emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and primary fine particulate matter driven by coal’s decl...

We used the US-TIMES energy-system model in conjunction with integrated assessment models for air pollution (AP3, EASIUR, InMAP) to estimate the consequences of local air pollutant (LAP) and carbon dioxide (CO2) policy on technology-choice, energy-system costs, emissions, and pollution damages in the United States. We report substantial policy spil...

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in stay-at-home policies and other social distancing behaviors in the United States in spring of 2020. This paper examines the impact that these actions had on emissions and expected health effects through reduced personal vehicle travel and electricity consumption. Using daily cell phone mobility data for each U.S. c...

Rapid technological change is opening new possibilities for electrification of the transportation sector. This paper offers novel empirical guidance to policymakers considering investments in electric urban buses. We determine the environmental benefit of using electric buses rather than diesel or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for urban transit. For...

Using integrated assessment models, we calculate the economic value of the extraordinary decline in emissions from US power plants. Annual local and global air pollution damages fell from $245 to $133 billion over 2010–2017. Decomposition shows changes in emission rates and generation shares among coal and gas plants account for more of this declin...

We combine a theoretical discrete-choice model of vehicle purchases, an econometric analysis of electricity emissions, and the AP2 air pollution model to estimate the geographic variation in the environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles. The second-best electric vehicle purchase subsidy ranges from $2,785 in California to -$4,964 in Nor...

This paper assembles heating fuel prices for the U.S. state of Vermont, from the colonial era to the present, in order to test whether energy fuel prices and energy service prices have diverged over this time period. Prior authors have reported evidence of a significant difference between long run energy fuel prices and energy service prices. Howev...

We estimate the damages and expected deaths in the United States due to excess emissions of NOx from 2009-2015 Volkswagen diesel vehicles. Using data on vehicle registrations and a model of pollution transport and valuation, we estimate excess damages of $430 million and 46 excess expected deaths. Accounting for uncertainty about emissions gives a...

Many natural and anthropogenic quantities are well-characterized by heavy-tailed distributions. Earthquakes and cities are oft-cited examples. This paper tests for power law behavior in a different context: air pollution emissions and health damage. Pollutants covered include fine particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia, and vo...

This analysis uses an integrated assessment model to link emissions from offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to impacts in the continental U.S. The analysis employs emission and production data for rigs located in the Gulf of Mexico to estimate the air pollution damages for the years 2000, 2005, and 2008. For platforms in the weste...

Governments around the world use national income accounting to measure economic performance. However, it is widely recognized that indices that focus exclusively on market production, such as gross domestic product (GDP), are incomplete. National accounts could be extended to include many nonmarket services. This paper presents an analysis of how a...

Systematic trends in the general price level of goods and services are the subject of extensive measurement and significant interest among researchers, policy makers and the general public. Dynamic price measurement is also important in environmental accounting in that real measures of augmented output are required to draw inferences on sustainabil...

Much of the air pollution currently regulated under U.S. emissions trading programs is non-uniformly mixed, meaning that health and environmental damages depend on the location and dispersion characteristics of the sources. Existing policy regimes ignore this fact. Emissions are penalized at a single permit price, regardless of the location of the...

This paper develops a model of an optimal regulatory program for greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions that accommodates the benefits due to reductions of co-pollutants including: sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Employing per ton damage estimates for the co-pollutants p...

Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC), a component of fine particulate matter (PM ≤ 2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter; PM(2.5)), are associated with premature mortality and they disrupt global and regional climate. We examined the air quality and health benefits of 14 specific emission control measures targeting BC and methane, an ozone precursor,...

The Scoping Plan for compliance with California Assembly Bill 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006; AB 32) proposes a substantial reduction in 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all economic sectors through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other technological measures. Most of the AB 32 Scoping Plan measures will simultaneously re...

Fraas and Lutter raise two important points in their comment on Muller and Mendelsohn (2009): How to design policies for sources that yield negative marginal damages? How does statistical uncertainty in the marginal damages affect the trading ratios across emitters? We address both issues in this response. (JEL H53, Q53, Q58)

Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC) contribute to both degraded air quality and global warming. We considered ~400 emission control measures to reduce these pollutants by using current technology and experience. We identified 14 measures targeting methane and BC emissions that reduce projected global mean warming ~0.5°C by 2050. This strategy...

This study presents a framework to include environmental externalities into a system of national accounts. The paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the United States. An integrated-assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pollution emissions for the US which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by...

The sulfur dioxide (SO(2)) cap and trade program established in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments is celebrated for reducing abatement costs ($0.7 to $2.1 billion per year) by allowing emissions allowances to be traded. Unfortunately, places with high marginal costs also tend to have high marginal damages. Ton-for-ton trading reduces emissions in l...

Non-CO2 air pollutants from motor vehicles have traditionally been controlled to protect air quality and health, but also affect climate. We use global composition-climate modelling to examine the integrated impacts of adopting stringent European on-road vehicle-emission standards for these pollutants in 2015 in many developing countries. Relative...

This study uses Monte Carlo analysis to characterize the uncertainty associated with per-ton damage estimates for 565 electric generating units (EGUs) in the contiguous United States (U.S.) This analysis focuses on damage estimates produced by an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for emissions of five local air pollutants: sulfur dioxide (SO<sub>2<...

The United States’ experimentation with emissions trading in the 1990s was an important first step in controlling air pollution while maximizing benefits from emissions that do occur. However, trading programs to date suffer a serious flaw: they treat all traded emissions of equal volume the same regardless of where they occur, instead of recognizi...

This paper argues for efficient environmental regulations that equate the marginal damage of pollution to marginal abatement costs across space. The paper estimates the source-specific marginal damages of air pollution and calculates the welfare gain from making the current sulfur dioxide allowance trading program for power plants more efficient. T...

Human exposure to ambient ozone (O(3)) has been linked to a variety of adverse health effects. The ozone level at a location is contributed by local production, regional transport, and background ozone. This study combines detailed emission inventory, air quality modeling, and census data to investigate the source-receptor relationships between nit...

Through a series of experiments, we measure the marginal damage of emissions near Atlanta using a sophisticated integrated assessment model. The marginal damages of sulfur dioxide (SO2) are driven by proximity to downtown Atlanta; emissions produced closer to the city lead to higher exposures and therefore damages. The spatial pattern in damages fr...

The hedonic literature has established that public water bodies provide external benefits that are reflected in the value of nearby residential real estate. The literature has employed several approaches to quantify these nonmarket services. With a residential hedonic model, this paper tests whether model specification affects resource valuation us...

Through a series of experiments, we measure the marginal damage of emissions near Atlanta using a sophisticated integrated assessment model. The marginal damages of sulfur dioxide (SO2) are driven by proximity to downtown Atlanta; emissions produced closer to the city lead to higher exposures and therefore damages. The spatial pattern in damages fr...

Most US consumers are charged a near-constant retail price for electricity, despite substantial hourly variation in the wholesale market price. This paper evaluates the .rst program to expose residential consumers to hourly real time pricing (RTP). I .nd that enrolled households are statistically signi.cantly price elastic and that consumers respon...

This paper demonstrates how parsimonious models of sinusoidal functions can be used to fit spatially variant time series in which there is considerable variation of a periodic type. A typical shortcoming of such tools relates to the difficulty in capturing idiosyncratic variation in periodic models. The strategy developed here addresses this defici...

This paper measures the damages due to emissions of air pollution in the United States. An integrated assessment model is used to calculate the marginal damage associated with emitting an additional ton of pollution from nearly 10,000 sources in the U.S. The total damage produced by a source is the marginal damage of an emission, its shadow price,...

The hedonic literature has established that public water bodies provide external benefits that are reflected in the value of nearby residential real estate. The literature has employed several approaches to quantify these nonmarket services. With a residential hedonic model, this paper tests whether model specification affects resource valuation us...

This paper examines the ozone (O3) damages caused by nitrogen oxides (NO(x)) emissions in different locations around the Atlanta metropolitan area during a summer month. We calculate O3 impacts using a new integrated assessment model that links pollution emissions to their chemical transformation, transport, population exposures, and effects on hum...

Environmental damages due to emissions of the criteria air pollutants vary according to the location of the source. The environmental economics literature recognizes this heterogeneity and it has provided criteria for e¢ cient regulation in the presence of such variability. However, without information regarding source-speci…c damages, designing po...

Abstract This paper uses a new integrated assessment model, APEEP, to compute the marginal damage of air pol- lution emissions from nearly 6,000 sources in the United States. Multiplying these marginal values by the tons of emissions generated,by each source yields an estimate of aggregate,damages.,The results suggest that particulates, sulfur diox...

This study uses Monte Carlo methods to characterize the uncertainty associated with per-ton damage estimates for 100 power plants in the contiguous United States (U.S.) This analysis focuses on damage estimates produced by an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for emissions of two local air pollutants: sulfur dioxide (SO2) and .ne particulate matter...

The present study presents a framework to include environmental externalities into a system of national accounts. The paper develops estimates of air pollution damages for each industry in the United States. The first section proposes a framework for national economic accounting that values pollution using marginal damages. An integrated-assessment...

A majority of the air pollution currently regulated under U.S. emissions trading programs is non-uniformly mixed, meaning that health and environmental damages depend on the location and disper-sion characteristics of the sources. Most emissions trading program designs ignore this fact. Emissions are penalized at a single permit price, regardless o...

A majority of the air pollution currently regulated under U.S. emissions trading programs is non-uniformly mixed, meaning that health and environmental damages depend on the location and disper-sion characteristics of the sources. Most emissions trading programs ignore this fact. Emissions are penalized at a single permit price, regardless of the l...