I have worked on several environmental policy issues.  I am currently examining or have examined in past research:

• Recreation Demand since the early 1980s. Since doing my PhD dissertation with Edward Morey on acid rain in the early 1980's, my work in this area has continually tried to tie microeconomic theory and applied econometrics together. Many papers are available on request, and see my CV for publications that you can probably download straight from websites for various electronic journals. Some fun papers are on rock climbing (papers in Land Economics (2002) , American J. of Agricultural Economics, Risk Analysis (1997) , and you can see Therese Grijalva's website for more information on that (Therese is in the Dept. of Economics, Weber State). I have also recently thought about "risky" recreation. See this paper: "Are Climbers Fools?: Modeling Risky Recreation" Paul Jakus, Mary Riddel, and W.D. Shaw. in The New Economics of Outdoor Recreation 2005, Nick Hanley, W.D. Shaw, Robert Wright (coeditors) Finally, I haven't stopped doing recreation stuff - see "papers" for a recent one with Hwa Kim and Richard Woodward in Land Economics (November 2007);
  
  
• Water Quantity resource economics issues. Another common theme in much of my work has been water resource issues. Recent research focuses on water quality but work in the middle and late 1990's examined values that recreational users of lakes have for water quantity. A contingent valuation study, mainly by my graduate student then, Eric Huszar, looked at the value of water when it was a positive externality to downstream users. I also did some work on water metering in the City of Reno, and with Molly and Jae Espey (both now at Clemson University), conducted a meta analysis of the price elasticity of demand for water. Also, see my new textbook on Water Resource Economics (2006), and the new paper with Richard Woodward on instream flows and uncertainty ( American J. of Agricultural Economics , August 2008);
  
  
• Time. I've long been interested in how people allocate their time and how that time should be valued in empirical work. See my early paper in Land Economics (1992), the later ones with Pete Feather in Land Economics (1999), J. of Environmental Economics and Management (1999) and Economic Inquiry (2000);
  
  
• Air Pollution (Ozone). With Mark Eiswerth and Steven Yen, we have two published papers on how asthma patients respond to ground level ozone pollution. This was old data, but we found some interesting things doing new modeling. See Review of Economics of the Household (2004);
  
  
• Nuclear waste storage and transportation. With Mary Riddel, we have modeled a sample of individuals' perceived mortality risks for the storage and transportation of nuclear wastes. The program examined relates to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Program. See papers in the Journal of Regional Science and Land Economics (2003), and in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (2006), Vol. 32 (March issue); 131-150
  
  
• Arsenic in Drinking Water. With Dr. Mark Walker and now several others including Paul Jakus and Mary Riddel, we continue to research how people respond to the presence of arsenic in drinking water. Results from a pilot study of those on private wells have been published in the J. of Water and Health (2005, October issue), in Risk Analysis (2005, December issue), and in the J. of the American Water Resources Association (October, 2006). New drafts of papers on arsenic risks were part of the U.S. EPA national study (2005-2008) and several are available on the papers page now (see the first accepted paper, forthcoming in Water Resources Research , 2009.
  
  
• Hurricanes/Natural Hazards. Using a small exploratory grant from the National Science Foundation, we collected data on Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees. "We" more or less includes Bill Neilson, Mary Riddel, and Richard Woodward, along with Justin Baker, and Sam Brody. We conducted a choice experiment to see how they might choose among possible places to live, with hurricane risks as a factor. We also wanted to see if by contacting these people a year later, their perceptions of risk had changed over time. You can take a look at these papers, each forthcoming in journals. See the paper on risks in the peer-reviewed journal, Journal of Risk Research (January 2009), and the one on location choice is now forthcoming in the journal, Natural Hazards Review , 2009.
  
  
• Uncertainty, Perceived mortality risks/Experimental Economics. New work examines how people perceive of mortality risk. Some of that involves the arsenic and instream flow projects. With Dr. Rudy Nayga and graduate student Andres Silva, we also conducted an experiment on students to see if they would bid in auctions for a food product that would reduce risks far into the future. See our paper in the peer-reviewed on-line journal, Economics Bulletin , Vol. 4 , No. 17. See also, the recent theoretical paper Paan Jindapon, Economics Letters , Sept. 2008. And finally, here is a fun little essay Woodward and I have written, published in the November 2007 AERE newsletter "Three Ships that Pass in the Night: Risk, Ambiguity, and the WTP/WTA Disparity"

Papers from these efforts can be requested and or you can get some of them at the papers website at: http://agecon2.tamu.edu/people/faculty/shaw/papers.htm

I have also worked extensively on several other resource and economics issues. Check out the Natural Resource and Environmental Economics Worksgroup's webpage: http://agecon.tamu.edu/research/REEfield.shtml

Teaching Interests I teach in the departmental graduate program.  The core of this involvement is with the course AgEc 695.  I will try to put some teaching materials up on the website also: http://agecon2.tamu.edu/people/faculty/shaw/classes.htm. .