Environmental Regulation and Labor Reallocation: Evidence from the Clean Air Act

This paper uses newly available data on plant level regulatory status linked to the Census Longitudinal Business Database to measure the impact of changes in county level environmental regulations on plant and sector employment levels. Estimates from a variety of specifications suggest a strong conn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American economic review Vol. 101; no. 3; pp. 442 - 447
Main Author Walker, W. Reed
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nashville American Economic Association 01.05.2011
Subjects
Air cleanliness
Air pollutants
Air pollution
Analysis
Capital expenditures
Censuses
Clean Air Act
Climate change
Costs
Economic regulation
Economic theory
Emission standards
Emissions
Emissions regulations
Employment
Environmental agencies
Environmental economics
Environmental impact studies
Environmental management
Environmental policy
Environmental pollution
Environmental protection
Environmental regulation
Environmental regulations
Flowers & plants
Human capital
Industrial pollution
Industrial regulation
Labour market
Plants
Pollutants
Pollution control
Regulated industries
Regulation
RESPONSES TO ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION
Studies
U.S.A
Workers
Workforce
United States > US
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Summary:This paper uses newly available data on plant level regulatory status linked to the Census Longitudinal Business Database to measure the impact of changes in county level environmental regulations on plant and sector employment levels. Estimates from a variety of specifications suggest a strong connection between changes in environmental regulatory stringency and both employment growth and levels in the affected sectors. The preferred estimates suggest that changes in county level regulatory status due to the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments reduced the size of the regulated sector by as much as 15 percent in the 10 years following the changes. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.101.3.442