What Have We Learned from the Deepwater Horizon Disaster? An Economist’s Perspective

Abstract

This paper outlines what we have learned about the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil disaster from the economics discipline as well as what effect the DWH disaster has had on the economics discipline. It appears that what we know about the economic impact of the DWH spill today is limited, possibly because such analysis is tied up in the federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process and other stateled efforts. There is evidence, however, that the NRDA process has changed over time to de-emphasize economic valuation of damages. There is also evidence that economists may be producing fewer outputs as a result of the DWH relative to scholars from other disciplines because of an apparent absence of funding for it. Of the research that has taken place, this paper provides a summary and highlights the main directions of future research. It appears that the most pressing topic is addressing the incentives and policies in place to promote a culture of safety in the offshore oil industry. Also, it appears that the most prominent, and challenging, direction of future research resulting from the DWH is the expansion of an ecosystems services approach to damage assessment and marine policy.Lea el abstracto en español 请点击此处阅读中文摘要

Valuation of marine plastic pollution in the European Arctic: Applying an integrated choice and latent variable model to contingent valuation

“…Oil spill incidents usually attract wider media coverage and catch high government and public attention. In some cases, oil spill incidents involved court litigations (Carson et al, 2003;Petrolia, 2015). Other types of marine pollution that have been valued using stated preference methods include: eutrophication and algal blooms (e.g.…”

Human Health and Socioeconomic Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

“…The DWH spill resulted in numerous socioeconomic impacts, including effects on the fishing, tourism, and transportation sectors, and others that may affect community vulnerability and resilience. Similar to investigations related to human health impacts, GoMRI supported research on DWH socioeconomic effects but at comparatively modest levels, with resulting publications constituting only approximately 6% of total GoMRIfunded publications and about 4.2% of total competitive grant funds awarded (Petrolia, 2014;Finucane et al, 2020a). While much progress has been made in longitudinal monitoring of biophysical parameters, there is a lack of similarly robust efforts to monitor a suite of socioeconomic variables that could be used to assess the value of non-market resources, or identify cultural attributes, attitudes, social connectivity, or resilience in an oil spill or other disaster context (NRC, 2013;Yoskowitz et al, 2015).…”

“…Alvarez et al (2014) used choice modeling to estimate compensation due to marine anglers from non-market value losses at a mean of US $585 million with a 95% confidence interval. Petrolia (2014) offers that perhaps the most prominent change for research resulting from the disaster was an expansion to an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment. The National Research Council (NRC, 2013) assessed oil spill impacts on the provisioning ecosystem service of seafood and fish-based products, as well as the cultural services provided through recreational fishing (among other case studies).…”

Economic impacts of cancelled recreational trips to Northwest Florida after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

“…The economic impact assessments presented in these studies represent a wide range of data sources, industries, and impact assessment methods, therefore, the results cannot be directly compared across sources. Petrolia () provided an overview of research related to the economic impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as well as an outline of future research directions in the economics profession that emerged because of this event. The Natural Resources Defense Council () also provided a brief overview of the research and results related to the ecological and economic impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.…”