Michael Moore's teaching involves courses in natural resource and environmental economics. His research interests include analysis of federal water policy and water allocation conflicts between environmental and consumptive uses of river systems; economic aspects of biodiversity and species conservation; and economics of environmental markets, including markets for green products (such as green electricity) and markets for pollution permits (such as the federal SO2 allowance market).

Awards and Grants:
Moore's recent grants are for the study of environmental markets. Two grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Market Mechanisms and Incentives competition are for studying pollution permit markets. One involves the nitrogen oxides market in southern California, with the grant The Market for RECLAIM Trading Credits: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of Intertemporal Trading and Cost Effectiveness (Stephen Holland, Co-PI). A second involves the study of the national sulfur dioxide market, with the grant Testing for Efficiency of the Sulfur Dioxide Allowance Market (Gloria Helfand, PI, and Moore, Co-PI). Moore also is studying markets for green products, using the case of electricity derived from renewable energy (green electricity). Two grants funded that research: Introducing Markets for Green Products: Product Demand, Environmental Quality, and Economic Welfare, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and The Information-Based Approach to Environmental Policy: An analysis of Green Electricity Programs in Michigan, funded by the Great Lakes Protection Fund, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Moore also is studying environmental constraints on hydropower and other river operations. Two case studies of chinook salmon are involved: endangered salmon species in the Columbia River Basin and salmon in the Manistee River system (Michigan) and Lake Michigan. To fund the latter, he was PI on the grant Ecological and Economic Impacts of Watershed Restoration on Salmonid Productivity in Lake Michigan Tributaries, funded by the Michigan Sea Grant College Program, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Research Interests:
Moore's research covers two general topics: (1) environmental markets and (2) water-resource policy and allocation in the United States. My research on environmental markets includes empirical studies of markets for green products and markets for air pollution permits. The research on green products compares the two main types of green electricity programs and tests predictions from the theory of private provision of public goods using data on household participation in two green electricity programs. The two programs studied are Detroit Edison?s SolarCurrents program and Traverse City Light and Power?s Green Rate program. The research on marketable permits examines the sulfur dioxide allowance market established under the U.S. Clean Air Act and the nitrogen oxides market in the greater Los Angeles area. Using time-series data, we test predictions from theoretical models of the functioning of these two markets.

In water-resource economics, Moore studies water-resource policy design and water-resource competition among endangered fish, agriculture, and hydropower. This involves analysis of federal water policy and endangered species policy in the American West. It also involves other policies related to river conservation and use, such as relicensing of private hydropower dams by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Current/Recent Research:

Conservation Behavior and Electricity Consumption. This research provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of voluntary conservation behavior. Two types of behavior are considered. First, individuals who care about environmental quality may voluntarily restrain their consumption of goods and services that generate a negative environmental externality. Second, individuals may choose to pay a voluntary price premium for "environmentally-friendly" goods and services. A simple theoretical model highlights the relationship between such voluntary restraint and voluntary price premiums. The model generates a series of predictions, which are then tested in an empirical study of electricity consumption with introduction of a price-premium, green-electricity program. The econometric results are consistent with all of the theoretical predictions and provide strong evidence of voluntary restraint and its relation to a voluntary price premium.

The Sulfur Dioxide Market. The sulfur dioxide allowance market in the U.S. reaches fifteen-years-old this year (1994-2009). Spot market prices for allowances show no clear intertemporal pattern over this period. Initially falling until early 1996, prices reached several peaks and troughs prior to 2004. Three times prices peaked above $200 per ton, and three times prices dipped below $100 per ton. To date, no research has systematically answered the empirical question: what explains the intertemporal path of sulfur dioxide prices? To answer this question, we are analyzing the price path of sulfur dioxide allowances using monthly data over the 1994-2001 period. This research is generally important for two reasons. First, the research will provide a rigorous test of dynamic efficiency in the sulfur dioxide market. Second, the research tests the Hotelling model of exhaustible resource economics. The Hotelling model has been notoriously difficult to test econometrically; the inclusion of resource extraction costs in the model poses significant problems. Sulfur dioxide allowances are produced costlessly, however, so their price exactly represents the asset's shadow value. Consequently, the sulfur dioxide market is an ideal setting for testing the Hotelling model.

Private Provision of Environmental Public Goods: Household Participation in Green Electricity Programs. Green-electricity programs provide an opportunity to study private provision of an environmental public good in a field setting. We first develop a theoretical framework to analyze household decisions about voluntary participation in green-electricity programs. We consider different participation mechanisms and show how they relate to existing theory on either pure or impure public goods. The models are used to examine the implications of participation mechanisms for the level of public-good provision. We then conduct an empirical investigation of actual participation decision in two green-electricity programs?one based on a pure public good and the other based on an impure public good. The data come from original household surveys of participants and nonparticipants in both programs, along with utility data on household electricity consumption. The econometric results are interpreted in the context of the theoretical models and are compared to other studies of privately provided public goods.

Cost-Effective Recovery Strategies for Snake River Chinook Salmon: A Biological-Economic Synthesis. Development of recovery plans for endangered salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin of North America is a complex, controversial resource-management issue. To inform this issue, we developed an integrated assessment model for analysis of biological-economic tradeoffs in recovery of Snake River spring/summer-run chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). The integrated model merged three modeling frameworks: a salmon-passage model to predict downstream migration and survival of juvenile salmon; an age-structured matrix model to predict long-term annual population growth rate of salmon stocks; and a cost-effectiveness analysis to determine the set of least-cost (?cost-effective?) recovery strategies, each of which is a cost-minimizing solution to achieving a particular population growth rate. We applied the integrated model to assess individual salmon recovery measures and seventy-two recovery strategies composed of one or more recovery measures. We found that removal of an estuarine predator, Caspian terns (Sterna caspia), is more biologically effective than discovered previously; it is the only recovery measure to markedly increase long-term population growth rates across a range of assumptions about effectiveness of smolt transport around dams and reservoirs. The cost-effectiveness analysis found that the type of strategy in the cost-effective set depended on assumptions about transport effectiveness. At the central estimate of transport effectiveness, cost-effective strategies can include smolt transportation, reservoir drawdown, and dam breaching. Transportation-based strategies are not cost effective under the assumption that transport produces relatively low rates of survival and return to spawning grounds. In contrast, transportation-based strategies return to the cost-effective set, while dam-breaching strategies are not cost effective, under the assumption that transport produces a high survival-and-return rate. More generally, the analysis eliminated roughly seventy-five percent of the recovery strategies from the set of cost-effective strategies. Linking biology and economics through an integrated assessment model thus provides a valuable tool for science-based policy and management.

Environmental Constraints on Hydropower: An Ex-Post Benefit-Cost Analysis of Dam Relicensing in Michigan. We conduct a benefit-cost analysis of a relicensing agreement for two hydroelectric dams in Michigan. The agreement changed daily conditions from peaking to run-of-river flows. We consider three categories of costs and benefits: producer costs of adapting electricity production to the new time profile of hydroelectric output; benefits of reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions; and benefits of improved recreational fishing. The best estimates suggest that the aggregate benefits are more than twice as large as the producer costs. The conceptual and empirical methods provide a template for investigating the effects of an environmental constraint on hydroelectric dams.

Teaching Interests:
Natural Resource Economics, Environmental Economics

Current/Recent Teaching:
Regular course offerings: Microeconomics with Natural Resource Applications (NRE 570), Topics and Tools in Environmental Economics (NRE 583), Graduate seminars in Applied Environmental Economics and Economics of Water Resources

Selected Publications:

• 2011.  When to Pollute, When to Abate?  Intertemporal Permit Use in the Los Angeles NOx Market.  With S.P. Holland. Land Economics.
• 2011.  Dividing the Waters: An Empirical Analysis of Interstate Compact Allocation of Transboundary Rivers.  With D.L. Katz.  Water Resources Research.
• 2011.  Explaining the Differential Distribution of Clean Development Mechanism Projects Across Host Countries.  With A.G. Winkelman.  Energy Policy.
• 2010. Quantifying U.S. Aluminum In-Use Stocks and Their Relationship with Economic Output.  With C.A. McMillan, G.A. Keoleian, and J.W. Bulkley.  Ecological Economics.
• 2010. Markets for Renewable Energy and Pollution Emissions: Environmental Claims, Emission-Reduction Accounting, and Product Decoupling.  With G. Lewis and D. Cepela.  Energy Policy.
• 2009. Cost-Effective Management of Snake River Chinook Salmon: Response to Wilson et al.  With D.L. Halsing. Conservation Biology. 
• 2008. Conservation: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium. With M.J. Kotchen. Environmental and Resource Economics.
• 2008. Cost-Effective Management Alternatives for Snake River Chinook Salmon: A Biological-Economic Synthesis. With D.L. Halsing. Conservation Biology.
• 2007. Private Provision of Environmental Public Goods: Household Participation in Green Electricity Programs. With M.J. Kotchen. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
• 2006. Environmental Constraints on Hydropower: An Ex-Post Benefit-Cost Analysis of Dam Relicensing in Michigan. With M.J. Kotchen, F. Lupi, and E.S. Rutherford. Land Economics.
• 2003. Cadillac Desert Revisited: Property Rights, Public Policy, and Water-Resource Depletion. With S.P. Holland. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
• 2003. Internal and External Influences on Pro-Environmental Behavior: Participation in a Green Electricity Program. With C.F. Clark and M.J. Kotchen. Journal of Environmental Psychology.
• 2001. Testing Theories of Agency Behavior: Evidence from Hydropower Relicensing Decisions of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With E.B. Maclin and D. Kershner. Land Economics. Vol. 77, p. 423-442.
• 1999. Estimating Irrigators? Ability-to-Pay for Reclamation Water. Land Economics. Vol. 75, p. 562-578.
• 1999. Salmon Recovery in the Columbia River Basin: Analysis of Measures Affecting Agriculture. With M. Aillery, M. Weinberg, G. Schaible, and N. Gollehon. Marine Resource Economics. Vol. 14, p. 15-40.
• 1998. Groundwater Institutions: Models and Experiments. With R. Gardner and J.M. Walker. In Designing Institutions for Environmental and Resource Management. M. Kilgour and E.T. Loehman (eds.). Edward Elgar Publisher: Northampton, MA, p. 321-338.
• 1997. Governing a Groundwater Commons: A Strategic and Laboratory Analysis of Western Water Law. With R. Gardner and J.M. Walker, Economic Inquiry. Volume 35, p. 218-234.
• 1996. Water Allocation in the American West: Endangered Fish Versus Irrigated Agriculture. With A. Mulville and M. Weinberg. Natural Resources Journal. Vol. 36, p. 319-357.
• 1995. Water and Land as Quantity-Rationed Inputs in California Agriculture: Empirical Tests and Water Policy Implications. With A. Dinar. Land Economics. Vol. 71, p. 445-461.
• 1995. Economic Analysis of Selected Water Policy Options for the Pacific Northwest. With G. Schaible, N. Gollehon, M. Kramer, and M. Aillery. Agriculture Economic Report, No. 720. Economic Research Service, USDA, June.
• 1994. Multicrop Production Decisions in Western Irrigated Agriculture: The Role of Water Price. With N. Gollehon and M. Carey. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Vol. 76, No. 4, p. 859-874.
• 1992. A Multicrop Production Model of Irrigated Agriculture, Applied to Water Allocation Policy of the Bureau of Reclamation. With D. Negri. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 29-43.
• 1991. Modeling Western Irrigated Agriculture and Water Policy: Climate Change Considerations. With N.R. Gollehon, M. Aillery, M. Kramer, and G. Schaible. In Global Change: Economic Issues in Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources. J. Reilly and M. Anderson (eds.) Westview Press: Boulder, CO.
• 1991. The Bureau of Reclamation's New Mandate for Irrigation Water Conservation: Purposes and Policy Alternatives. Water Resources Research. Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 145-155.
• 1989. Native American Water Rights: Efficiency and Fairness. Natural Resources Journal. Vol. 29, pp. 763-791.