By Jeff McMahon
Clean air regulations cost the United States about $21 billion per year in lost productivity, a University of Chicago economist said this afternoon.
But the benefits of environmental regulation—improved health, reduced infant mortality, increased property values—are typically estimated at more than $100 billion, said Chad Syverson, professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
“It looks like—you’ve got $21 billion on this side, $100-something billion over here—the scale is actually suggesting that the marginal benefit of regulation is quite a bit bigger than the marginal cost, at least over the sample,” Syverson told about 40 people gathered in a campus lecture hall…