peter.clough

Peter has over 20 years experience of economic research and consulting, and has specialized in applying economics to hard-to-quantify areas of environmental health and public safety, and in comparative analysis of economic instruments and other policy measures in fields such as biosecurity, energy and transport. He has appeared as expert witness before the Environment Court and other hearings giving testimony on such issues as the economics of climate change policy, land use planning, biodiversity conservation, energy generation and water use.

Much of this experience has been gained while at NZIER working for clients in central and local government and in the private sector, but he has also had time out from consulting with spells in the Ministry of Economic Development working on design of emissions trading for climate change and for the UK government’s statutory adviser on the natural environment, English Nature.

In collaboration with consulting engineers and planners, Peter prepared a cost benefit analysis and report for the Ministry for the Environment on the likely nationwide impacts of applying National Environmental Standards under the Resource Management Act to the permitting of telecommunications facilities in road reserves.

This demonstrated substantial benefits in speeding the roll-out of facilities for wireless services and relatively minor costs, giving the Ministry confidence in preparing its National Environmental Standards for public consultation and later implementation.

Faced with a Treasury edict to cut red tape, the Victorian Department of Primary Industries called on NZIER to prepare a report on worldwide experience of methods for measuring regulatory performance and prioritizing improvements, including the standard cost model, the business compliance cost model, and broader measures of regulatory impacts on business.

Drawing on case studies the report showed that simple calls for red tape reduction by applying the standard cost model could be counter-productive, shaving off administrative cost but incurring much bigger compliance costs, and it provided evidence for the Department to engage with the Treasury for a more flexible approach to make the most of regulatory improvements.

The Natural Gas Corporation in 2002 commissioned Peter to prepare and present evidence to the Environment Court on the treatment of CO2 emissions in resource consents, in face of calls for new thermal power generation to plant trees as offsets for greenhouse gas emissions.

The Court accepted Peter’s argument that policy on global emissions was best dealt with by a national policy, that regional policies could be counter-productive in slowing down commissioning of newer, more efficient technologies, and ruled against the imposition of local offset conditions.

Faced with public concern over unsafe roads following a string of serious accidents, the Ministry of Transport commissioned Peter to prepare two reports on the principles and practice in assessing the value of statistical lives saved by transport improvements. These found the so-called Human Capital approach of valuing fatalities at the discounted value of future earnings foregone to be precise but flawed, and that basing the value on individuals’ risk aversion would be preferable.

The Ministry commissioned Peter in further work on a design and interpretation of a contingent valuation survey of transport risk reduction, on the basis of which the value of life used in official project evaluations was raised almost nine-fold and more road safety measures were funded.