Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

  March 7 (Thursday) at 9 am ET    Register

Lecture title: Incorporating Air and Water Pollution into the National Income and Product Accounts

Abstract: The concept of extending the National Income and Product Accounts to include the environment has been discussed for decades.  Much of the emphasis has been on valuing natural capital, such as water resources, forests and minerals; however, economists have also considered accounts for pollution.  I will discuss the possibility of developing satellite accounts for local and global air pollution and water pollution.  This would include core emissions accounts which describe emissions of key air and water pollutants by sector but also monetary estimates of the damages associated with these emissions.  The externalities associated with air and water pollution in the United States are substantial.  Measuring and valuing these externalities will help us as a nation determine how we are progressing in terms of our impacts on the environment.    

This lecture is based on a paper by Maureen Cropper and Yongjoon Park, “Incorporating Air and Water Pollution into the National Income and Product Accounts” presented at the NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth in March of 2023.

Maureen Cropper is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a member of the board of directors at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She has served as a lead economist in the World Bank’s Research Department, chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board Environmental Economics Advisory Committee, and chair of EPA’s Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis. In 2016-17 she co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Assessing Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon.

Learn more about Dr. Cropper here. 

Lecture presentation slides