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Ken Acks, CEO to Chair Session and Present Paper at 2011 Annual Conference of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis in Washington DC
Link: http://benefitcostanalysis.org/events/2011-conference-agenda
Kenneth Acks, CEO of the Cost-Benefit Group, LLC will chair a session and present a paper at the Fourth Annual Conference and Meeting of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis.
The conference, entitled "Expanding the Scope of Benefit Cost Analysis: Practical Applications and Analytical Frontiers" will be held at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. from Friday October 21st through Saturday October 22, 2011.
The Conference will continue the focus of past conferences on the practical use of Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) in a variety of institutional and national settings, with special attention to the role of BCA in both prospective and retrospective program evaluation; and to broadening and improving measurement of benefits and/or costs. As in past years, the conference will convene a large number of guests, including researchers, and practitioners working in academia, nonprofits, businesses, and government around the world. The annual membership meeting of the Society will be held during lunchtime on October 22.
Registration and general conference information is available at http://benefitcostanalysis.org/events/2011-conference-and-meeting-society-benefit-cost-analysis. The full agenda is available at http://benefitcostanalysis.org/events/2011-conference-agenda
Ken Acks will present the paper "Estimated Costs and Benefits of one Thousand Green Roofs in New York City" at the Panel 14 session: "Alternative Energy, Green Roofs, and BCA in the Netherlands" on Saturday October 22nd from 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM in the Renoir Room. The abstract follows:
In this paper we develop a model designed to estimate and tally the private and social costs and benefits of installing green roofs in New York City. Model inputs include baseline data on roof areas and other parameters, and variable assumptions reflecting high, medium, and low green roof performance scenarios with respect to various cost and benefit parameters. Key cost and benefit components estimated include: installation costs (generally higher for green roofs); service lives (greater for green roofs); architecture and engineering costs; maintenance costs; energy used for cooling; the urban heat island effect; Stormwater runoff operating costs and capital expenditures; potential economies of scale for installation and maintenance costs; administrative costs; sound reduction; aesthetic benefits; potential greenhouse gas reduction; air pollution reductions; food production and recreation. Costs and Benefits will also be compared to painted white roofs and installation of solar panels. Sensitivity analyses will consider the role of scale, and uncertainty of various estimated benefits.
Other papers in the panel are: "A Model for the Financial and Economic Analysis of Wind Farms For Electricity Generation with Application to Santiago, Cape Verde by Sener Salci, Graduate Student, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, UK and Glenn P. Jenkins, Professor, Department of Economics, Queen’s University, Canada and Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus and "The Practice of Valuing the Environment in Cost-Benefit Analysis by Jan Anne Annema, Assistant Professor, Transport Policy, Delft University of Technology (Presenter) Carl Koopmans, Professor, VU University, Amsterdam.
Mr. Acks will moderate Panel 5: "Air/Water Pollution" in the Renoir Room from 4:30 - 6:00 PM on Friday October 21, 2011 which will feature the following papers:
** "Does Electronic Reporting of Emissions Information Generate Environmental Benefits?"
by Ron Shadbegian, Senior Economist, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Center for Environmental Economics (Presenter); Ann Wolverton, Senior Economist, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Center for Environmental Economics; and Wayne Gray, Professor, Clark University
** "Uncertainty and Estimates of the Benefits of Reducing Fine Particle Pollution" by Randall Lutter, Visiting Scholar, Resources for the Future and Art Fraas, Visiting Scholar, Resources for the Future
** "The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Approaches to Residential Radon Control" by Erik Johnson, Assistant Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology (Presenter); Paul Courant, Harold T. Shapiro Collegiate Professor of Public Policy Professor of Economics and of Information, University of Michigan; David Mendez, Associate Professor, University of Michigan and Kenneth Warner, Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor of Public Health, University of Michigan
** "Reference-Dependent Valuations of Environmental Health Risks" W. Kip Viscusi, Distinguished Professor of Law, Economics, and Management, Vanderbilt University (Presenter) and Joel Huber, Schwartz Professor of Marketing, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University