<excuse>
Family wedding all weekend. Busted.
</excuse>
Last week a feriend asked via text if I knew how fires were named. I answered with a guess that it had something to do with the name of the location where the fire is first spotted. I decided to take this simple question to relaunch the blogging effort after a missed weekend.
According to this interview with Tom Lavagnino, a fire information officer from California, fires are named by the firest agency to spot them, and usually are identified by the nearest geographic feature. This doesn't mean that the naming is accurate. What becomes more important over time is that the identifier is consistent across agencies than the actual closest geographic landmark.
When fires merge they become complexes and are renamed. This is a reequirement of how fires are fought. Two separate fires with their own names are fought by different ncident command systems. If the fires become physically close enough that they cannot be managed separately they become a complex. The separate entites that fought the fires then merge into a singe command structure.
That's the answer. Nothing so fancy or ordered as the naming of hurricanes and tropical storms. I might look at how other countries name their fires later on.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Collaborative outputs
<excuse for not posting yesterday>
Family in town
</excuse>
From my first post on collaboratives I came up with a set of questions to address in the coming days. The first I am tackling is what are the various outputs from collaboratives. Koontz and Thomas (2006) who were part of the last post's question on what collaboratives are, inquire about what we need to know about environmental outcomes from collaboratives. They list a number of outputs from collaboratives that others have studied. I begin there. They pointedly ask if collaboratives as a policy choice result in different outcomes than other approaches, and what those differences are.
They provide a list of environmental outputs and outcomes and the data collection methods that have been used to measure them in the following chart:
The outputs range from the creation of documents such as plans and reports, to operational activities such as specific projects completed, to changes in policy, to changes in the management practices of participant and non-participating organizations, to programs started. The variation in outputs is broad.
There may be other outputs from collaboratives such as norms and social network changes that are not on this list due to the constraint of environmental outputs. Tomorrow I will look into what those might be.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Collaboratives
Putting my work on the economic concepts aside for a while I now turn to the form that many communities use to organize and plan: collaboratives. The question for today is what does the literature on collaboratives define the concept as?
The empirical thing I am trying to get a handle on through this is the groups of community members, city employees, agency representatives and businesses that come together to create plans and collaborate to handle broad or specific problems within their communities and environments. These groups are more frequent and advocated for these days, notably in the form of community wildfire protection plans in wildfire response policy. These plans have no statutory force yet may be successfully improving wildfire response in communities across the United States.
Right out the gate the lack of specificity of this concept is troubling. Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh (2011) tackle the concept as collaborative governance. They propose a framework of governance that tackles broad contextual variables, the environment and internal dynamics that make up governance. The most important part of this for me is the part that only shows up as a dotted-line box somewhere in the middle: the governance regime.
The empirical thing I am trying to get a handle on through this is the groups of community members, city employees, agency representatives and businesses that come together to create plans and collaborate to handle broad or specific problems within their communities and environments. These groups are more frequent and advocated for these days, notably in the form of community wildfire protection plans in wildfire response policy. These plans have no statutory force yet may be successfully improving wildfire response in communities across the United States.
Right out the gate the lack of specificity of this concept is troubling. Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh (2011) tackle the concept as collaborative governance. They propose a framework of governance that tackles broad contextual variables, the environment and internal dynamics that make up governance. The most important part of this for me is the part that only shows up as a dotted-line box somewhere in the middle: the governance regime.
The CGR is the system for "public decision making in which cross-boundary collaboration represents the prevailing pattern of behavior and activity." Their definition is highly tautological. Collaborative Governance Regimes have public decision making with a prevailing pattern of cross-boundary collaboration. In this article the system that frames the collaborative regime as well as the dynamics within the regime get multiple pages of development. The CGR heading has a single short paragraph in it. They systems a regime is situated in and the dynamics inside the regime matter. But what are the characteristics of a CGR and how do they vary?
Koontz and Thomas (2006) call this phenomenon "multisector collaborative arrangements". This particular piece is about the challenges and importance in knowing about the environmental outcomes of collaborative management in comparison to market or hierarchical management structures. The players in the arrangement in their definition should include "grassroots" and "bottom-up" actors even while governments are playing a
"variety of roles". One role they focus on is the provision of funds to collaborative groups. The historical focus is on processes and normative arguments for collaboration. But I am still not sure what they are and what role they function.
It is easy to imagine a situation where agencies and watershed councils claim collaboration in order to get more money. What remains to be asked is what actual role do these collaboratives have in making policy? Do they have power? How do their decisions matter?
The obvious way to define a collaborative then is based on what it is not. A collaborative (process, governance regime) is one where there are multiple voices in a conversation about decisions including those that are not a part of a single central government (employee or elected official). That is a broad category. If the county and city are involved in a process then it might be considered a collaborative in Emerson et al's definition.
Rather than go much further down this rabbit hole I want to set up multiple questions that I will be asking about collaboratives than emerge from this initial discussion.
- Do some collaboratives make policy?
- What are the outputs from collaborative processes?
- Is there a difference in the literature between a collaborative that is a recognized public (governmental) entity and those that are not (private, nonprofit)?
- What is a collaborative? No, seriously this time.
- Part 3
- When are collaboratives a strategy (not a rule or norm) and when aren't they?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
No answer 1
This second question is one that I will have a harder time answering and so will investigate as a thought experiment:
Is wildfire mitigation nonrival?
This questions stems from the previous question. Public goods are both nonexludable and nonrival. Unlike the concept of externalities they are rather well defined. The characteristic of nonrivalry is not absolutely black and white. (neither of the concepts that make up a public good are, but here we focus on the concept of rivalry). The source from the previous post defined public goods almost solely on their lack of rivalry. A good is a public good if the total amount of the good provided was consumed by every individual who consumed it. This is opposed to a private good where total consumption is the sum of the amount consumed by each individual. If the amount produced is 100, and multiple single individuals are able to consume 100 each, then the good produced is a public good due to the fact that it is nonrival.
This is the messiness of it all. Wildfire mitigation, if provided intentionally for a community as a whole, can be nonrival according to this definition. However, treatments to reduce wildfire hazard are spatial. They occur at specific locations in the landscape. People who are exposed to wildfire have property at specific locations within the landscape. The location of the treatment and the location of the property determine the reduction in hazard for a property. So if mitigation is provided generally in the form of treatment in specific locations the consumption of the mitigation is determined by the location of the property and the mitigation. The sum is somewhere in between a sum of consumption and the total amount produced. This is messy.
I was attempting to understand this as a matter of spatial externalities in previous work. As noted in the previous post, externalities are not necessarily public goods, and vice versa. If this is a matter of a continuum of public good rivalry then there are other major questions at hand rather than that of spatial externalities.
The concept that my advisor used to distinguish variation in the public good depending on location was one of quality. This is a challenging notion for me. What is quality? If a good is provided at 100 units, and location a gets 100 and location b gets 80, then is it truly quality, or quantity? If we assume the good is absolutely nonrival, then the quantity by definition cannot vary. The only thing remaining is good quality.
So, if the reduction in individual loss that results from the provision of a public good such as wildfire mitigation varies from location to location, is it nonrival? I don't know.
Is wildfire mitigation nonrival?
This questions stems from the previous question. Public goods are both nonexludable and nonrival. Unlike the concept of externalities they are rather well defined. The characteristic of nonrivalry is not absolutely black and white. (neither of the concepts that make up a public good are, but here we focus on the concept of rivalry). The source from the previous post defined public goods almost solely on their lack of rivalry. A good is a public good if the total amount of the good provided was consumed by every individual who consumed it. This is opposed to a private good where total consumption is the sum of the amount consumed by each individual. If the amount produced is 100, and multiple single individuals are able to consume 100 each, then the good produced is a public good due to the fact that it is nonrival.
This is the messiness of it all. Wildfire mitigation, if provided intentionally for a community as a whole, can be nonrival according to this definition. However, treatments to reduce wildfire hazard are spatial. They occur at specific locations in the landscape. People who are exposed to wildfire have property at specific locations within the landscape. The location of the treatment and the location of the property determine the reduction in hazard for a property. So if mitigation is provided generally in the form of treatment in specific locations the consumption of the mitigation is determined by the location of the property and the mitigation. The sum is somewhere in between a sum of consumption and the total amount produced. This is messy.
I was attempting to understand this as a matter of spatial externalities in previous work. As noted in the previous post, externalities are not necessarily public goods, and vice versa. If this is a matter of a continuum of public good rivalry then there are other major questions at hand rather than that of spatial externalities.
The concept that my advisor used to distinguish variation in the public good depending on location was one of quality. This is a challenging notion for me. What is quality? If a good is provided at 100 units, and location a gets 100 and location b gets 80, then is it truly quality, or quantity? If we assume the good is absolutely nonrival, then the quantity by definition cannot vary. The only thing remaining is good quality.
So, if the reduction in individual loss that results from the provision of a public good such as wildfire mitigation varies from location to location, is it nonrival? I don't know.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Public Goods and Externalities
The inaugural question is this: What are the distinctions and relationships between positive externalities and public goods?
First, what are each of these concepts separately? Public goods, using the typology developed by Elinor Ostrom, has the features of being neither rival nor excludable. A good is rival if one person gaining benefit from it prevents another from gaining benefit from it. A good is excludable if it is relatively low cost to prevent another from accessing it. The combination of these two characteristics make public goods unique. It is high cost to prevent others from accessing the resource and the benefit any one person receives from the resource is not reduced by another gaining benefit.
Positive externalities are benefits generated by people engaging in production that cannot be exclusively claimed by the person producing. In stricter definitions the goods in one person's output vector is included in another person's input vector without compensation or control by the government.
The prompt for this question emerged from a problem I encountered in specifying how to conceptualize voluntary hazard response. If someone does something to help themselves, and in the process creates benefits for others, then the concept is clearly an externality. If multiple people act to provide a general benefit for many including themselves then it is a public good. They seem related. Individual action creates benefits for others. But they are clearly separate concepts in other ways. What is the link?
My investigation led me to this piece by Holtermann from Economica in 1972. After initially defining both the above he immediately states that "not all external outputs are public goods." A good can be captured by many or by just one person. It is a characteristic of the output, not the source, that defines the good. Public goods production can indeed have externalities themselves that are not public goods. The provision of defense can create benefits in other countries under the umbrella of our defense that can be internalized by that country. The public good of in-stream flow generated from a group upstream can allow for personal capture and benefit of an actor downstream.
The answer I find is both complicated and simple. An externality is any good or bad output that others include in their input. Public goods are described by their own characteristics, not from their source and destination. Many things provided without human intervention are public goods. Air is a public good not generated by individuals. Therefore public goods are not reliant upon or all externalities.
However if a public good is going to be intentionally provided it will be the result of actions that generate externalities. If I pay for the army then my output is on my own and others' inputs as benefits. But externalities can be public goods unintentionally provided for.
So the conclusion I end on tonight is that externalities can be public goods and public goods can be generated as externalities, but neither is a necessary condition of the other.
First, what are each of these concepts separately? Public goods, using the typology developed by Elinor Ostrom, has the features of being neither rival nor excludable. A good is rival if one person gaining benefit from it prevents another from gaining benefit from it. A good is excludable if it is relatively low cost to prevent another from accessing it. The combination of these two characteristics make public goods unique. It is high cost to prevent others from accessing the resource and the benefit any one person receives from the resource is not reduced by another gaining benefit.
Positive externalities are benefits generated by people engaging in production that cannot be exclusively claimed by the person producing. In stricter definitions the goods in one person's output vector is included in another person's input vector without compensation or control by the government.
The prompt for this question emerged from a problem I encountered in specifying how to conceptualize voluntary hazard response. If someone does something to help themselves, and in the process creates benefits for others, then the concept is clearly an externality. If multiple people act to provide a general benefit for many including themselves then it is a public good. They seem related. Individual action creates benefits for others. But they are clearly separate concepts in other ways. What is the link?
My investigation led me to this piece by Holtermann from Economica in 1972. After initially defining both the above he immediately states that "not all external outputs are public goods." A good can be captured by many or by just one person. It is a characteristic of the output, not the source, that defines the good. Public goods production can indeed have externalities themselves that are not public goods. The provision of defense can create benefits in other countries under the umbrella of our defense that can be internalized by that country. The public good of in-stream flow generated from a group upstream can allow for personal capture and benefit of an actor downstream.
The answer I find is both complicated and simple. An externality is any good or bad output that others include in their input. Public goods are described by their own characteristics, not from their source and destination. Many things provided without human intervention are public goods. Air is a public good not generated by individuals. Therefore public goods are not reliant upon or all externalities.
However if a public good is going to be intentionally provided it will be the result of actions that generate externalities. If I pay for the army then my output is on my own and others' inputs as benefits. But externalities can be public goods unintentionally provided for.
So the conclusion I end on tonight is that externalities can be public goods and public goods can be generated as externalities, but neither is a necessary condition of the other.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Beginning
In the great tradition of programming, hello world!
My name is Carl, an environmental policy graduate student at the University of Arizona. I am starting this blog as an opportunity to maintain writing productivity and address questions in my many areas of interest. My intention is to post daily. The post will take the form of posing a question to myself and finding some answers, or at least some information on the subject to move me along in my understanding.
This process is modeled on a post I read last week on lifehacker about ways to be more productive through blogging. The idea is that if you write a bit everyday with some parallel focus then there will be an aggregate of value. In my graduate program there are disparate and dissonant assignments that might be forced into the box of my interest but they are rarely timed well and require meeting the expectations of a class or particular professor or discipline. Up to this point my free writing has consisted of notes on different books and articles as they pertain to different papers and presentations. Here I will be attempting to change this up. I will begin with a question and attempt to answer it.
The subjects tackled in my posed questions will most likely fall in the vein of institutional analysis in the context of community wildfire response (hence the name "Institutional Inquiry"). My work and interest in policy is situated in the work of Elinor Ostrom on solving common pool resource problems through local self-governance. My advisor, Edella Schlager, was one of her students and has continued developing work in this area especially in the area of water policy. I have collaborated with her on a number of projects and am moving into a period of building my own area of interest. This blog will be playing a major role in this self-guided process.
Rather than continue a long introductory post with more information about my interest I will rely on future posts to demonstrate them. Thanks for visiting!
My name is Carl, an environmental policy graduate student at the University of Arizona. I am starting this blog as an opportunity to maintain writing productivity and address questions in my many areas of interest. My intention is to post daily. The post will take the form of posing a question to myself and finding some answers, or at least some information on the subject to move me along in my understanding.
This process is modeled on a post I read last week on lifehacker about ways to be more productive through blogging. The idea is that if you write a bit everyday with some parallel focus then there will be an aggregate of value. In my graduate program there are disparate and dissonant assignments that might be forced into the box of my interest but they are rarely timed well and require meeting the expectations of a class or particular professor or discipline. Up to this point my free writing has consisted of notes on different books and articles as they pertain to different papers and presentations. Here I will be attempting to change this up. I will begin with a question and attempt to answer it.
The subjects tackled in my posed questions will most likely fall in the vein of institutional analysis in the context of community wildfire response (hence the name "Institutional Inquiry"). My work and interest in policy is situated in the work of Elinor Ostrom on solving common pool resource problems through local self-governance. My advisor, Edella Schlager, was one of her students and has continued developing work in this area especially in the area of water policy. I have collaborated with her on a number of projects and am moving into a period of building my own area of interest. This blog will be playing a major role in this self-guided process.
Rather than continue a long introductory post with more information about my interest I will rely on future posts to demonstrate them. Thanks for visiting!
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