Lori S. Bennear, Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy

Lori S. Bennear

My research focuses on evaluating environmental policies and improving methods and techniques for conducting these evaluations. While the field of policy evaluation is a broad one, my specific niche is in bringing rigorous quantitative methods to evaluate environmental policy innovations along four dimensions.  (1) Evaluating the effectiveness of environmental policies and programs. This line of research uses statistical analysis to estimate the extent to which environmental policies such as information disclosure and management-based regulations actually improve corporate environmental performance, change household behavior, or improve individual environmental health indicators. (2) Evaluating strategic behavioral responses to non-traditional regulatory regimes. Environmental policies create incentives and in responding to these incentives, regulated entities sometimes behave strategically in ways that undermine program effectiveness.  This line of research seeks to illuminate these strategic behavioral responses and quantify the magnitude of their impact.  (3)  Assessing the distributional impacts of these new regulatory regimes. My research in this area evaluates whether innovations in regulatory policy result in uneven distribution of environmental impacts on lower income or minority communities.  (4)  Evaluating the role of program evaluation in environmental policy. My research identifies the barriers to and facilitators of increased use of evaluation in environmental policy.

Office Location:  Grainger Hall 5118, 9 Circuit Drive, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:  +1 919 613 8083
Email Address: send me a message
Web Pages:  www.duke.edu/lds5
http://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/regulation/about/rethinking-regulation/

Teaching (Fall 2024):

Education:

Ph.D.Harvard University2002
M.A.Yale University1996
ABOccidental College
Specialties:

Economics
environmental economics
Public Policy
environmental policy
Keywords:

Data Collection • Environmental Policy • Muser Mentor • Regulation

Working Papers

  1. L.S. Bennear, M. Baker-Goering, M. Lenox, The Effectiveness of Information Disclosure: An Examination of the TRI (2008)
  2. M.B. Sullivan, L.S. Bennear, W.E. Painter, Jr., A Quasi-experimental Examination of Family Centered Treatment®: Outcomes for a Juvenile Delinquent Population (2008)
  3. L.S. Bennear and K.L. Dickinson, The Role of Program Evaluation in Environmental Policy: A Critical Evaluation of the Incentives Created by GPRA and PART. (2008) [pdf]
Representative Publications

  1. Bennear, LS, What do we really know? The effect of reporting thresholds on inferences using environmental right‐to‐know data, Regulation & Governance, vol. 2 no. 3 (September, 2008), pp. 293-315, Wiley, ISSN 1748-5983 [Gateway.cgi], [doi]  [abs]
  2. Bennear, LS; Olmstead, SM, The impacts of the "right to know": Information disclosure and the violation of drinking water standards, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, vol. 56 no. 2 (January, 2008), pp. 117-130, Elsevier BV, ISSN 0095-0696 [doi]  [abs]
  3. Bennear, LS; Stavins, RN, Second-best theory and the use of multiple policy instruments, Environmental and Resource Economics, vol. 37 no. 1 (May, 2007), pp. 111-129, Springer Nature, ISSN 0924-6460 [doi]  [abs]
  4. Bennear, LS, Are Management-Based Regulations Effective?, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol. 26 no. 2 (2007), pp. 327-348, WILEY, ISSN 0276-8739 [doi]  [abs]
  5. Bennear, LS; Stavins, RN; Wagner, A, Private Options to Use Public Goods: Using Revealed Preferences to Estimate Environmental Benefits, Journal of Regulatory Economics, vol. 28 no. 2 (2005), pp. 157-180
  6. Bennear, LS; Coglianese, C, Measuring progress: Program evaluaton of environmental policies, Environment, vol. 47 no. 2 (March, 2005), pp. 22-39, Informa UK Limited, ISSN 0013-9157 [doi]
  7. Snyder, LD; Miller, NH; Stavins, RN, The effects of environmental regulation on technology diffusion: The case of chlorine manufacturing, American Economic Review, vol. 93 no. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 431-435, American Economic Association, ISSN 0002-8282 [doi]
  8. Sadd, JL; Pastor, M; Boer, JT; Snyder, LD, "Every breath you take ... ": The demographics of toxic air releases in Southern California, Economic Development Quarterly, vol. 13 no. 2 (January, 1999), pp. 107-123, SAGE Publications [doi]  [abs]
  9. Boer, LSBWT; Sadd, J; Pastor, M, Is There Environmental Racism: An Empirical Analysis of the Geographical Distribution of Hazardous Waste Facilities in Los Angeles County, Social Science Quarterly (December, 1997)
  10. Bennear, LS, Evaluating Management-Based Regulation: A Valuable Tool in the Regulatory Tool Box?, in Leveraging the Private Sector: Management-Based Strategies for Improving Environmental Performance, edited by Coglianese, C; Nash, J (2006), pp. 51-86, Resources for the Future Press, ISBN 9781936331444 [doi]
  11. Bennear, LS; Coglianese, C, Program Evaluation of Environmental Policies: Toward Evidence-Based Decision Making, in Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities, edited by Brewer, GD; Stern, PC (2005), National Academies Press, Washington, DC
  12. Bennear, LS; Jessoe, KK; Olmstead, SM, Sampling out: regulatory avoidance and the Total Coliform Rule., Environmental science & technology, vol. 43 no. 14 (July, 2009), pp. 5176-5182, ISSN 0013-936X [19708338], [doi]  [abs]
  13. L.S. Bennear, M. Baker-Goering, M. Lenox, The Effectiveness of Information Disclosure: An Examination of the TRI (2008)
  14. M.B. Sullivan, L.S. Bennear, W.E. Painter, Jr., A Quasi-experimental Examination of Family Centered Treatment®: Outcomes for a Juvenile Delinquent Population (2008)
  15. L.S. Bennear and K.L. Dickinson, The Role of Program Evaluation in Environmental Policy: A Critical Evaluation of the Incentives Created by GPRA and PART. (2008) [pdf]