IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jenpmg/v53y2010i2p219-239.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Non-linear incentives, plan design, and flood mitigation: the case of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's community rating system

Author

Listed:
  • Sammy Zahran
  • Samuel Brody
  • Wesley Highfield
  • Arnold Vedlitz

Abstract

A basic proposition of 'agency theory' is that output-based performance incentives encourage greater effort. However, studies find that incentive schemes can distort effort if rewards for performance are discrete or non-linear. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Community Rating System (CRS) is a flood mitigation programme with a non-linear incentive design. Under this programme, localities are incentivised to implement a mix of 18 flood mitigation activities. Each activity is performance scored, with accumulated scores corresponding to a percent discount on flood insurance premiums for residents that hold National Flood Insurance policies. Discounts range from 0 to 45% and increase discretely in increments of 5%. With multivariate statistical and Geographic Information Systems analytic techniques, tests are made to find whether observed changes in annual CRS scores for participating localities in Florida are explained by non-linear incentives, adjusting for hydrologic conditions, flood disaster histories, socio-economic and human capital controls that can plausibly account for local mitigation activity scores over time. Results indicate that local jurisdictions are discount-seeking, with mitigation efforts partially driven by the non-linear incentive design of the CRS programme. The paper ends with recommendations to improve the operation FEMA's flood mitigation programme.

Suggested Citation

  • Sammy Zahran & Samuel Brody & Wesley Highfield & Arnold Vedlitz, 2010. "Non-linear incentives, plan design, and flood mitigation: the case of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's community rating system," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 219-239.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:53:y:2010:i:2:p:219-239
    DOI: 10.1080/09640560903529410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09640560903529410
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09640560903529410?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1982. "Design of incentive schemes and the new Soviet Incentive model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 127-148.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eugene Frimpong & Daniel R Petrolia & Ardian Harri & John H. Cartwright, 2020. "Flood Insurance and Claims: The Impact of the Community Rating System," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 245-262, June.
    2. Carolyn Kousky & Howard Kunreuther, 2018. "Risk Management Roles of the Public and Private Sector," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 181-204, March.
    3. Liao, Yanjun (Penny) & Sølvsten, Simon & Whitlock, Zachary, 2024. "Community Responses to Flooding in Risk Mitigation Actions: Evidence from the Community Rating System," RFF Working Paper Series 24-08, Resources for the Future.
    4. Douglas S. Noonan & Xian Liu, 2019. "Heading for the Hills? Effects of Community Flood Management on Local Adaptation to Flood Risks," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 800-822, October.
    5. Abdul-Akeem Sadiq & Douglas Noonan, 2015. "Local capacity and resilience to flooding: community responsiveness to the community ratings system program incentives," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 78(2), pages 1413-1428, September.
    6. Noonan, Douglas S. & Sadiq, Abdul-Akeem, 2019. "Community-scale Flood Risk Management: Effects of a Voluntary National Program on Migration and Development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 92-99.
    7. Liu, Xian & Noonan, Douglas, 2022. "Building underwater: Effects of community-scale flood management on housing development," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benford, Frank A., 1998. "On the Dynamics of the Regulation of Pollution: Incentive Compatible Regulation of a Persistent Pollutant," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 1-25, July.
    2. Kevin Koh & Li Li & Xuejiao Liu & Chunfei Wang, 2023. "The Effect of Audit Partner Diversity on Audit Quality: Evidence from China," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(1), pages 340-380, March.
    3. Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev & Andrei Markevich, 2024. "New Russian Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 47-114, March.
    4. Dirk Yandell, 1988. "Audit Information and Incentives for Efficiency," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 32(1), pages 49-58, March.
    5. Zou, L., 1991. "The target-incentive system vs. the price-incentive system under adverse selection and the ratchet effect," Other publications TiSEM fd7efcb1-2cf3-42e0-b6a4-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Riis, Christian, 2008. "Efficient Contests," MPRA Paper 10906, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Joaquim Vergés, 2010. "Incentive schemes for executive officers when forecasts matter," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(5), pages 339-352.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom, 1980. "On The Theory of Delegation," Discussion Papers 438, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    9. Benard, Jean, 1987. "Socialist incentive schemes and price planning," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 8735, CEPREMAP.
    10. Ottorino Chillemi & Benedetto Gui & Lorenzo Rocco, 2017. "Community repeated interaction and strategic delegation," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(3), pages 737-760, August.
    11. Ottorino Chillemi & Benedetto Gui & Lorenzo Rocco, 2013. "The value of information disclosure under local learning. The case of fixed types," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0161, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:53:y:2010:i:2:p:219-239. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CJEP20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.