IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v101y2019i5p827-840.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regulation-Induced Pollution Substitution

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew Gibson

    (Williams College)

Abstract

Environmental regulations may cause firms to reoptimize over pollution inputs. By regulating air emissions in particular counties, the Clean Air Act (CAA) gives firms incentives to substitute toward polluting other media, like waterways, and toward pollution from plants in other counties. I test these hypotheses using the EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). Regulated plants increase their ratio of water-to-air emissions by 177% (102 log points) and their level of water emissions by 105% (72 log points). Regulation of an average plant increases air emissions at unregulated plants within the same firm by 11%.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew Gibson, 2019. "Regulation-Induced Pollution Substitution," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 827-840, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:101:y:2019:i:5:p:827-840
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/rest_a_00797
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Griliches, Zvi & Hausman, Jerry A., 1986. "Errors in variables in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 93-118, February.
    2. Hilary Sigman, 1996. "Cross-Media Pollution: Responses to Restrictions on Chlorinated Solvent Releases," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 72(3), pages 298-312.
    3. Levinson, Arik, 2003. "Environmental Regulatory Competition: A Status Report and Some New Evidence," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 56(1), pages 91-106, March.
    4. repec:clg:wpaper:2008-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Bento, Antonio M. & Lowe, Scott E., 2009. "Measuring the effects of the Clean Air Act Amendments on ambient PM10 concentrations: The critical importance of a spatially disaggregated analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 15-26, July.
    6. E. Mark Curtis, 2018. "Who Loses under Cap-and-Trade Programs? The Labor Market Effects of the NOx Budget Trading Program," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 151-166, March.
    7. James B. Bushnell & Erin T. Mansur, 2011. "Vertical Targeting and Leakage in Carbon Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 263-267, May.
    8. Meredith L. Fowlie, 2009. "Incomplete Environmental Regulation, Imperfect Competition, and Emissions Leakage," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 72-112, August.
    9. Mary F. Evans, 2016. "The Clean Air Act Watch List: An Enforcement and Compliance Natural Experiment," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 627-665.
    10. Sigman, Hilary, 2003. "Letting States Do the Dirty Work: State Responsibility for Federal Environmental Regulation," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 56(1), pages 107-122, March.
    11. Michael Greenstone, 2003. "Estimating Regulation-Induced Substitution: The Effect of the Clean Air Act on Water and Ground Pollution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 442-448, May.
    12. Gray, Wayne B. & Shadbegian, Ronald J. & Wang, Chunbei & Meral, Merve, 2014. "Do EPA regulations affect labor demand? Evidence from the pulp and paper industry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 188-202.
    13. Arik Levinson & M. Scott Taylor, 2008. "Unmasking The Pollution Haven Effect," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 223-254, February.
    14. Ernst R. Berndt & Laurits R. Christensen, 1973. "The Internal Structure of Functional Relationships: Separability, Substitution, and Aggregation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 403-410.
    15. Humphrey, David Burras & Moroney, John R, 1975. "Substitution among Capital, Labor, and Natural Resource Products in American Manufacturing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(1), pages 57-82, February.
    16. Westbrook, M Daniel & Buckley, Patricia A, 1990. "Flexible Functional Forms and Regularity: Assessing the Competitive Relationship between Truck and Rail Transportation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(4), pages 623-630, November.
    17. Janet Currie & Matthew Neidell, 2005. "Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn from California's Recent Experience?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1003-1030.
    18. Maximilian Auffhammer & Antonio M. Bento & Scott E. Lowe, 2011. "The City-Level Effects of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 87(1), pages 1-18.
    19. Campbell, H. F., 1991. "Estimating the elasticity of substitution between restricted and unrestricted inputs in a regulated fishery: A probit approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 262-274, May.
    20. Rema Hanna, 2010. "US Environmental Regulation and FDI: Evidence from a Panel of US-Based Multinational Firms," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 158-189, July.
    21. Blackorby, Charles & Russell, R Robert, 1989. "Will the Real Elasticity of Substitution Please Stand Up? (A Comparison of the Allen/Uzawa and Morishima Elasticities)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 882-888, September.
    22. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2005. "Does Air Quality Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 376-424, April.
    23. Scott Marchi & James Hamilton, 2006. "Assessing the Accuracy of Self-Reported Data: an Evaluation of the Toxics Release Inventory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 57-76, January.
    24. Michael Greenstone, 2002. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulations on Industrial Activity: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments and the Census of Manufactures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1175-1219, December.
    25. Sigman, Hilary, 2005. "Transboundary spillovers and decentralization of environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 82-101, July.
    26. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn, 2009. "Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1714-1739, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Gibson, Matthew, 2014. "Dirty and perverse: regulation-induced pollution substitution," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt6tn7t0wv, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    2. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Rijal, Binish & Khanna, Neha, 2020. "High priority violations and intra-firm pollution substitution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Walter, Jason & Raff, Zach, 2019. "When the regulator goes home: The effectiveness of environmental oversight," MPRA Paper 94158, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Brunel, Claire & Johnson, Erik Paul, 2019. "Two birds, one stone? Local pollution regulation and greenhouse gas emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Chen, Shiyi & Jiang, Lingduo & Liu, Wanlin & Song, Hong, 2022. "Fireworks regulation, air pollution, and public health: Evidence from China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2018. "Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3814-3854, December.
    8. Sneeringer Stacy E, 2009. "Effects of Environmental Regulation on Economic Activity and Pollution in Commercial Agriculture," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-35, July.
    9. Ying She & Yaobin Liu & Yangu Deng & Lei Jiang, 2020. "Can China’s Government-Oriented Environmental Regulation Reduce Water Pollution? Evidence from Water Pollution Intensive Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-19, September.
    10. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León, 2015. "Firm's response and unintended health consequences of industrial regulations," Economics Working Papers 1469, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    11. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Kozluk, Tomasz & Kruse, Tobias & Nachtigall, Daniel & de Serres, Alain, 2019. "Do Environmental and Economic Performance Go Together? A Review of Micro-level Empirical Evidence from the Past Decade or So," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(1-2), pages 1-118, April.
    12. Alex Hollingworth & Taylor Jaworski & Carl Kitchens & Ivan Rudik, 2022. "Economic Geography and the Efficiency of Environmental Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 9644, CESifo.
    13. Don Fullerton & Dan Karney, 2014. "Multiple Pollutants, Uncovered Sectors, and Suboptimal Environmental Policies," CESifo Working Paper Series 4891, CESifo.
    14. Tanaka, Shinsuke, 2015. "Environmental regulations on air pollution in China and their impact on infant mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 90-103.
    15. Joseph E. Aldy & Maximilian Auffhammer & Maureen Cropper & Arthur Fraas & Richard Morgenstern, 2022. "Looking Back at 50 Years of the Clean Air Act," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 179-232, March.
    16. Zach Raff & Jason M. Walter, 2020. "Regulatory Avoidance and Spillover: The Effects of Environmental Regulation on Emissions at Coal-Fired Power Plants," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(3), pages 387-420, March.
    17. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León, 2019. "Interlinked firms and the consequences of piecemeal regulation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 876-916.
    18. Joseph S. Shapiro & Reed Walker, 2015. "Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining" The Roles of Trade, Regulation, Productivity, and Preferences," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1982R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Sep 2016.
    19. Mao, Jie & Wang, Chunhua & Yin, Haitao, 2023. "Corporate responses to air quality regulation: Evidence from a regional environmental policy in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    20. Liao, Jiaqi & Zhang, Ning, 2024. "Environmental regulation and manufacturing employment: Evidence from China's Eleventh Five-Year Plan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tpr:restat:v:101:y:2019:i:5:p:827-840. 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: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.