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EPA Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses

2014

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses provide a framework for assessing the impacts of environmental regulations and policies that has been extensively peer-reviewed and is widely-applied both within and outside of the agency. The Guidelines discuss: (1) statutory and executive order requirements for conducting economic analyses; (2) identifying the need for policy action; (3) regulatory and non-regulatory approaches to pollution control; (4) baseline definition; (5) discounting future benefits and costs; (6) analyzing benefits; (7) analyzing costs; (8) estimating economic impacts on business, government, and other entities; (9) environmental justice, children, and other distributional considerations; and (10) presenting the analysis and results. It also includes appendices that cover economic theory, mortality risk valuation; and accounting for unemployed labor in more detail, as well as a reference list and index.

 

Source:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2010 (with 2014 update). https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/guidelines-preparing-economic-analyses