Who Benefits from Environmental Regulation? Evidence from the Clean Air Act Amendments

Bento, Antonio M.; Freedman, Matthew L.; Lang, Corey

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00493

Cited by 110 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Moreover, it might be the case that improvements in environmental quality affect market prices and/or wages in ways that could differentially impact household welfare, and understanding the distributional impacts of environmental policy requires researchers to grapple with these general equilibrium issues. For example, Bento, Freedman, and Lang (2015) show that lowerincome homeowners tended to enjoy the greatest benefits from the 1990 CAAA, as these were the homeowners located in areas that experienced the largest improvements in air quality. Based on house price appreciation, households in the lowest quintile of the income distribution received annual benefits from the program equal to 0.3% of their income on average during the 1990s, over twice as much as those in the highest quintile.…”

Section: Some Policy Discussion Concerning Air Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Distribution of Environmental Damages

Hsiang¹,

Oliva²,

Walker³

2019

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy

138

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Most regulations designed to reduce environmental externalities impose costs on individuals and firms. An active body of research has explored how these costs are disproportionately born by different sectors of the economy and/or across different groups of individuals. However, much less is known about the distributional characteristics of the environmental benefits created by these policies, or conversely, the differences in environmental damages associated with existing environmental externalities. We review this burgeoning literature and develop a simple and general framework for focusing future empirical investigations. We apply our framework to findings related to the economic impact of air pollution, deforestation, and climate, highlighting important areas for future research. A recurring challenge to understanding the distributional effects of environmental damages is distinguishing between cases where (i) populations are exposed to different levels or changes in an environmental good, and (ii) where an incremental change in the environment may have very different implications for some populations. In the latter case, it is often difficult to empirically identify the underlying sources of heterogeneity in marginal damages, as damages may stem from either non-linear and/or heterogeneous damage functions. Nonetheless, understanding the determinants of heterogeneity in environmental benefits and damages is crucial for welfare analysis and policy design.

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Section: Some Policy Discussion Concerning Air Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Distribution of Environmental Damages

Hsiang¹,

Oliva²,

Walker³

2019

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy

138

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“…The evidence is not uniform, and there remain important, unresolved debates about the causal mechanism(s) underlying these patterns [31][32][33]. Nevertheless, the presence of these disparities has generated social mobilization among affected communities [34,35], and at least some limited response from federal, state, and local government agencies [33,[36][37][38][39].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial, ethnic, and income disparities in air pollution: A study of excess emissions in Texas

Konisky

Zirogiannis

2019

PLoS ONE

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Objective Excess emissions are pollutant releases that occur during periods of startups, shutdowns or malfunctions and are considered violations of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They are an important, but understudied and under-regulated, category of pollution releases given their frequency and magnitude. In this paper, we examine the demographic correlates of excess emissions, using data from industrial sources in Texas. Methods We conduct two complementary sets of analyses: one at the census tract level and one at the facility level. At the census tract level, we use a multinomial logit model to examine the relationships between racial, ethnic, and income characteristics and the incidence of excess emissions. At the facility level, we first estimate a logit model to examine whether these characteristics are associated with facilities that emit excess emissions, and then, conditional on the presence of excess emissions, we use ordinary least square regression to estimate their correlation with the magnitude of releases. Results Across our analyses, we find that the percentage of Black population and median household income are positively associated with excess emissions; percentage of college graduate, population density, median housing value, and percentage of owner-occupied housing unit are negatively associated with excess emissions. We, however, have not found a clear and significant relationship between the percentage of Hispanic population and excess emissions.

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“…As houses in the most polluted areas tend to be owned by relatively lower-income households on average, these homeowners enjoyed the largest improvements in air quality and hence the highest relative house price appreciation. The poorest households received annual benefits from the programme that were two times higher relative to their incomes than the wealthiest households (Bento et al 2015).…”

Section: Standards For Ambient Air Quality and Building Energy Performentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, these are also among the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups due to a greater risk of lost earnings due to health impacts of pollution and generally lower baseline health. For instance, the United States Clean Air Act Amendments provide incentives to abate pollution in areas where pollution levels are highest, leading to relatively larger environmental benefits for the poorer neighbourhoods (Bento et al 2015).…”

Section: │ 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

The distributional aspects of environmental quality and environmental policies

Mackie¹,

Haščič²

2019

OECD Green Growth Papers

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The OECD Green Growth Strategy, launched in May 2011, provides concrete recommendations and measurement tools to support countries' efforts to achieve economic growth and development, while at the same time ensure that natural assets continue to provide the ecosystems services on which our well-being relies. The strategy proposes a flexible policy framework that can be tailored to different country circumstances and stages of development. This paper was originally presented at the 2018 Green Growth and Sustainable Forum as background information and has been authorised for publication by Mr. Rodolfo Lacy, Director, Environment Directorate. OECD Green Growth Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD, or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the authors. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. OECD Green Growth Papers aim to describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on specific topics and obtain feedback from interested audiences. They complement the OECD Green Growth Studies series, which aims to provide in-depth reviews of the green growth issues faced by different sectors.

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Who Benefits from Environmental Regulation? Evidence from the Clean Air Act Amendments

Cited by 110 publications

References 21 publications

The Distribution of Environmental Damages

The Distribution of Environmental Damages

Racial, ethnic, and income disparities in air pollution: A study of excess emissions in Texas

The distributional aspects of environmental quality and environmental policies

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