UH Mānoa is particularly strong in energy, environment and resource policy, which often requires interdisciplinary research. This workshop is organized by UHERO and facilitates interaction among faculty and graduate students in UHERO, Economics, Engineering, NREM, DURP, SOEST and more. We also hope to draw participation from visitors and professional economists and policy analysts around the State. Work in progress is strongly encouraged!
Seminars will take place at the Miller Room. The seminar can also be attended online via Zoom on Mondays from 12:00pm – 1:15pm. Subscribe to the WEER mailing list to receive the Zoom link and further information on upcoming sessions.
Class Credit:
Graduate students can obtain ECON 696 credit from Professor Lynham.
Spring 2026
For graduate students taking the seminar for course credit. Discussing logistics for the seminar.
No Seminar
Where’s Coase?: The Implications of Economic Property Rights or Rent-Seeking in Forming Institutions
Abstract:
Ronald Coase’s Nobel work outlined gains by reducing transaction costs and promoting property rights and markets to confront externalities. Countering market failure assertions and calls for centralized government intervention, Coase retorted that decentralized market negotiations could be welfare-improving by promoting collaborative, efficient problem solving, and releasing resources to the general economy. Despite this, his approach is not central to any US environmental law implemented after 1970. Federal government mandates dominate. Where’s Coase? explains why. The private objectives of political agents lead to policies that are likely to be too costly and inequitable, despite provision of public goods. Citizens face high collective action costs and lack information to distinguish between public goods and private agent benefits. Examining three major environmental laws: the Clean Air Act, the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Act, and the Endangered Species Act, the book explores policy development and assesses the resulting costs relative to Coase’s framework.
Difference-in-Differences with Spatial Spillovers
Abstract:
Empirical work often uses treatment assigned following geographic boundaries. When the effects of treatment cross over borders, classical difference-in-differences estimation produces biased estimates for the average treatment effect. In this paper, I introduce a potential outcomes framework to model spillover effects and decompose the estimate’s bias in two parts: (1) the control group no longer identifies the counterfactual trend because their outcomes are affected by treatment and (2) changes in treated units’ outcomes reflect the effect of their own treatment status and the effect from the treatment status of “close” units. I propose estimation strategies that can remove both sources of bias and semi-parametrically estimate the spillover effects themselves including in settings with staggered treatment timing. To highlight the importance of spillover effects, I revisit analyses of three place-based interventions.
Redistribution in Environmental Permit Markets: Transfers and Efficiency Costs with Trade Restrictions
Abstract:
Regulators often impose trade restrictions in environmental permit markets to redistribute value to groups that do not directly benefit from permit trade, such as labor in regulated firms, at the expense of lowering gains from trade. I evaluate the efficiency and distributional impacts of two common trade restrictions in Iceland’s fisheries permit market: segmented trading by firm size and individual production requirements. Using detailed harvest and permit trading data linked to administrative records on worker employment and earnings, I conduct a difference-in-differences analysis showing that permit trade increases the harvest share of productive boats by 15 percentage points, shifts income from lower- to higher-income workers, and reduces aggregate labor intensity by 12%. I further demonstrate that the trade restrictions, designed to counteract these labor impacts, are binding and lower productivity. To quantify the distinct trade-offs from each restriction, I develop a model of fishery production and permit trading to simulate profits, labor demand, and worker earnings in equilibria without the restrictions. Per dollar of foregone profit, segmentation increases labor demand 20 times more than the production requirement, while the production requirement redistributes 14% more income to low-income workers than segmentation. Implementing both restrictions outperforms the production requirement alone and is preferable to segmentation alone if regulators aim to balance job creation with a compressed income distribution.
No Seminar
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Abstract:
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Reassessing LNG in Hawaiʻi: Fuel Price Dynamics, Planning Assumptions, and Interconnection Reform
Abstract:
Hawaiʻi is weighing major investments in LNG infrastructure and thermal plant upgrades, justified by projected savings and emissions reductions relative to continued reliance on low-sulfur fuel oil (LSFO). This talk evaluates those claims under updated fuel-price context, alternative planning assumptions, and more realistic pathways for renewable deployment. We discuss why LSFO has recently been expensive—reflecting IMO 2020 compliance dynamics and refinery adjustment—and why the LSFO premium may continue to ease as supply chains and compliance options mature. At the same time, expanding oil supply and moderating demand growth could reduce both oil and gas prices, with larger downside potential for LSFO; this asymmetry materially affects the economics of plant upgrades and fuel switching once infrastructure costs and utilization risk are considered.
The presentation also reviews the recent policy and planning history. Hawaiian Electric’s Integrated Grid Planning (IGP) process, while imperfect, was developed through an extensive stakeholder process under Public Utilities Commission oversight and public scrutiny, and it used comparatively moderate demand-growth assumptions. By contrast, recent LNG-oriented scenarios advanced by the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office (HSEO) have not undergone comparable transparent vetting and contain methodological choices that tend to preserve long-run fossil fuel burn by constraining least-cost renewables. We juxtapose the IGP pathway, the HSEO proposals, and a least-cost portfolio that achieves substantially deeper and faster decarbonization and much lower costs. The talk closes with policy options—including interconnection reform and retail wheeling approaches with transparent price signals—that can unlock faster, lower-cost solar and storage deployment and reduce the need for new fossil infrastructure.
Valuing Hawaiʻi’s Trails: A Survey-Based Choice Experiment to Assess Willingness-to-Pay for Sustainable Management of the Nā Ala Hele Trail and Access Program
Abstract:
Trails in Hawaiʻi provide ecological, cultural, and recreational value, yet face growing pressures from overuse, limited funding, and climate change. The Nā Ala Hele Trail and Access Program, managed by the Hawaiʻi Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), oversees the state’s trail system while operating under significant resource constraints. To support sustainable trail management, we collaborated with DOFAW to evaluate how residents and visitors value key trail attributes using a discrete choice experiment. The analysis estimates willingness to pay for improvements in habitat quality, trail condition, and crowding, as well as associated per-trip costs, capturing preferences between Hawaiʻi residents and tourists. Results indicate astrong willingness to pay for habitat quality and trail condition improvements, with reductions in crowding valued to a lesser extent, and tourists consistently exhibiting higher valuations than residents. We also assess public attitudes toward user-fee systems, payment mechanisms, and cost allocation, finding broad support for fee-based funding alongside varied preferences across user groups. This study provides DOFAW with evidence-based guidance for prioritizing trail investment, designing user-fee systems, and developing funding strategies that align with user preferences while supporting long-term ecological and recreational sustainability.
Land ownership and the provision of public goods: Evidence from Oregon’s forests
Abstract:
Forests generate important public goods, including carbon storage and habitat for biodiversity, while also contributing to increasing wildfire risks. Private landowners do not fully internalize these benefits and risks, potentially leading to socially inefficient management and undersupply of public goods. Exploiting the historical ‘checkerboard’ land pattern in the American West as an instrument for ownership, we show that public ownership reduces timber harvests and herbicide use in forests, resulting in greater carbon storage, higher biodiversity, and, surprisingly, also lower wildfire risk. These results underscore the role of land ownership in shaping the supply of public goods.
Ecosystem-based fisheries management in European waters
Abstract:
Historically, fisheries were considered inexhaustible, but major stock collapses demonstrated the need for regulation and more holistic management approaches. Ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) recognizes that fish populations are influenced not only by fishing but also by species interactions, environmental conditions, habitat changes, and socio-economic factors. Ecosystem models, such as the Ecopath with Ecosim modeling framework, integrate these processes to simulate ecosystem dynamics across time and space and evaluate management strategies. In this presentation, I will introduce EBFM and the role of ecosystem modeling in supporting sustainable fisheries decision-making in Mediterranean, and more broadly, European waters.
Cost of Power Outages on US Commercial Businesses
Abstract:
Power system reliability is increasingly strained by climate extremes, with growing implications for economic resilience and social equity. Yet how the economic burdens of power outages are distributed across businesses and communities remains poorly understood. We provide high-resolution empirical evidence on the commercial impacts of power outages across U.S. counties between 2019 and 2022. We find that each additional outage hour reduces daily county-level commercial sales by about 2%, with losses intensifying during prolonged outage events (over 8 hours) and afternoon periods. Sectoral vulnerability varies significantly, with building materials, accommodations, and gas stations relatively resilient to outages. Moreover, we find that the commercial outage impact concentrates disproportionately in counties with high minority populations and high incomes, as well as those at risk of various climate hazards, including heat waves, winter weather, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, hail, and riverine flooding. Leveraging the observed spatial heterogeneity, we show that place-based resilience investments will yield greater economic benefits. Our findings highlight reliable energy infrastructure as a critical pillar of sustainable development under climate change.
Dynamic Common Pool Resource Allocation under Heterogeneous Thresholds
Abstract:
Common pool resource (CPR) use is shaped by intertemporal dynamics, resource collapse thresholds, and user heterogeneity – complex features that affect sustainable CPR management but are rarely examined together. We theoretically develop a dynamic CPR game that incorporates all three features, and we empirically test the model using a laboratory experiment focused on groundwater depletion. Our theoretical model predicts behavior at equilibrium under homogeneous and heterogeneous resource collapse thresholds, with players exiting the game upon collapse. The experiment compares observed behavior to these predictions. We find that participants consistently under-extract relative to the Markov perfect equilibrium. Heterogeneous thresholds lead to lower aggregate extraction and higher social efficiency, even though high-risk users remain active longer than predicted. These findings suggest that making heterogeneity more salient among users and targeting high-risk users with conservation incentives may contribute to more sustainable and efficient CPR management outcomes.
Pricing Protection: Credit Scores, Disaster Risk, and Home Insurance Affordability
Abstract:
We use 70 million policies linked to mortgages and property-level disaster risk to show that credit scores impact homeowners insurance premiums as much as disaster risk. Homeowners with low credit pay 24% more for identical coverage than high–credit score homeowners. Leveraging a natural experiment in Washington State, we find that banning the use of credit information considerably weakens the relationship between credit score and pricing. We discuss the role of credit information in pricing and show that, although insurance is often overlooked in discussions of home affordability, a low credit score increases premiums roughly as much as it raises mortgage rates.
The value of public catch information
Abstract:
Government agencies collect data from individuals and organizations to monitor activities and inform management decisions. These datasets can become publicly accessible under transparent management. These public data sources create opportunities for innovative digital platforms providing information services in the private sector. This potential is exemplified in Norway’s fishing industry, where public access to fishing data has driven the development of digital platforms that aim for both sustainable fishing practices and energy efficiency , which are critical objectives in the fishing industry’s efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change. However, the value of information accessibility remains ambiguous, as better information may lead to increased fleet congestion in productive fishing grounds. Using natural experiments in Norwegian fisheries that altered the accessibility of public catch data, this paper analyzes how information availability affects fishing profit, fishing efficiency, and fleet congestion, focusing specifically on Norwegian bottom trawlers, the largest vessels in groundfish fisheries that face particular scrutiny for their carbon emissions and seabed impacts. This paper examines key sustainability metrics including bycatch rates, fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and seabed disturbance. This research provides insights into the trade-offs inherent in data transparency policies, particularly in natural resource management where public sector data accessibility can drive private sector innovation while potentially affecting competitive dynamics.
Drivers of Catch Variability in the Hawaiʻi Longline Fishery
Abstract:
The Hawaiʻi longline fishery generates approximately $100–120 million annually and is often described as the state’s largest food producer by value. Despite its economic importance, the drivers of catch variability for primary targets—ʻahi (bigeye and yellowfin tuna) and swordfish—remain poorly quantified. Even less is known about retained non-target species (e.g., mahimahi, ono, opah, monchong) and discarded bycatch. I will present recent work evaluating environmental and operational drivers of catch rates using a suite of species distribution models across three categories: target species, retained non-targets, and bycatch. I will also discuss economic considerations of operational decisions within this fleet driven by shifts in target species and catch damage.