Three essays on accidental oil spills
Abstract
This thesis contributes three essays to the literature on accidental oil spills. The first essay presents a model of endogenous oil spill regulation where the severity of regulations is found to be a function of the size of recent spills. The regulator chooses how much to regulate in order to maximize political capital when regulations are rigid downwards and the distribution of spills is not known with certainty. In this model, very large spills can cause large increases in the regulation level. In the event that an unlikely disastrous spill is realized, major regulatory reform may take place, which would take the regulations to a level that is too high. The first essay demonstrates the need for an understanding of the distribution of spills. The other two essays estimate it in the context of a sample selection model, first with normal disturbances and then using semiparametric estimation techniques. The estimates and predictions are found to be sensitive to distributional assumptions and the techniques used. Major findings that are qualitatively supported by both are the following. Groundings and collisions result in larger spills if there is a spill, but the likelihood that there will be a spill due to a grounding or a collision is very low. Tanker size has only a marginal effect on the probability of a spill and a dubious effect on spill size. US flag tankers and new tankers have a lower probability of causing spills, compared to foreign flag and old tankers, respectively.
Recommended Citation
Ayla Ogus,
"Three essays on accidental oil spills"
(January 1, 1999).
Boston College Dissertations and Theses.
Paper AAI9930885.
http://escholarship.bc.edu/dissertations/AAI9930885
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