Journal Awards
Best Article Award
The Best Article Award was started in 2017 and is awarded to those who the annual committee deems to have written the best articles published in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis in the prior year.Award Recipients
2021:
- Best Original Article: "Monetizing Bowser: A Contingent Valuation of the Statistical Value of Dog Life" by Deven Carlson, Simon Haeder, Hank Jenkins-Smith, Joseph Ripberger, Carol Silva, and David Weimer
This article extended the well-established concept of the value of a statistical life (VSL) for people to dogs. This is not just an academic exercise, but rather a useful tool for policymakers responsible for the safety of pet food and other animal health issues. The article also provides a highly accessible example of VSL estimation that highlights that it is the price people are willing to pay to reduce mortality risks, not a philosophy value of life.
- Best Applied Article: "The Benefits and Costs of Using Social Distancing to Flatten the Curve for COVID-19" by Linda Thunström, Stephen C. Newbold, David Finnoff, Madison Ashworth, and Jason F. Shogren
This article was the first published study of the benefits and costs of social distancing policy to help mitigate the damage from the COVID-19 pandemic. The article provided a framework and empirical estimates that policymakers could use as they sought to develop appropriate responses to the spread of COVID-19. The bottom-line conclusion was that even with the substantial economic costs associated with a broad-based social distancing policy, the lives saved by such a policy could generate net benefits in the U.S. worth trillions of dollars. The article is also a nice example of how to provide useful policy advice even when faced by substantial uncertainty. The article is by far the most frequently read article in the past year.
2020:
- "Applying Benefit-Cost Analysis to Air Pollution Control in the Indian Power Sector," by Maureen Cropper, Sarath, Guttikunda, Puja Jawahar, Zachary Lazri, Kabir Malik, Xiao-Peng Song, and Xinlu Yao
- Estimates of Law Enforcement Costs by Crime Type for Benefit-Cost Analyses" by Priscilla Evelyne Hunt, Jessica Saunders, and Beau Kilmer
- “Welfare Analysis: Bridging the Partial and General Equilibrium Divide for Policy Analysis” by Scott Farrow and Adam Rose
- “Best Estimate Selection Bias in the Value of a Statistical Life” by W. Kip Viscusi
- “On the Distributional Implications of Safe Drinking Water Standards” by Dennis C. Cory and Lester D. Taylor
- "Contingent Valuation and the Poicymaking Process: An Application to Used Nuclear Fuel in the United States" by Deven Carlson, Joseph Ripberger, Hank Jenkins-Smith, Carol Silva, Kuhika Gupta, Robert Berrens, and Benjamin Jones
- "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Unified Approach to Behavioral Welfare Economics" by B. Douglas Bernheim
- "Rational Benefit Assessment for an Irrational World: Toward a Behavioral Transfer Test" by W. Kip Viscusi and Ted Gayer
JBCA Award
The JBCA Award is given to those who have contributed significantly to the growth and success of the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis.
Award Recipients
2018: R. Scott Farrow, Professor, Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
2016: Gillian Greenough, Senior Editor, Cambridge University Press
2015: David Weimer, member of the JBCA Editorial Board
2014: Mary Kokoski, Managing Editor of the JBCA
Best Symposium Published
Award Recipients2019: Benefit-Cost Analysis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Methods and Case Studies, Lisa Robinson, Guest Editor, Volume 10, Issue S1, Spring 2019
Arnold Harberger Prize for Retrospective Analysis
The 2013 Arnold Harberger Prize for Retrospective Analysis honored Professor Harberger’s legacy of benefit-cost work with high standards for relevance and impact. The award and an honorarium of $2,100 for the best retrospective paper published in the JBCA went to David Greenberg, Victoria Deitch, and Gayle Hamilton for their synthesis of welfare-to-work studies (JBCA, 1:1) with analysis that was clear, relevant, and useful for policy guidance. Honorable mention was awarded to Chris Rohlfs (JBCA, 3:3) for his elegant study of the benefits and costs of the military draft.Award Recipients
2013: "A Synthesis of Random Assignment Benefit-Cost Studies of Welfare-to-Work Programs" by David H. Greenberg, Victoria Deitch and Gayle Hamilton