IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v21y2002i1p45-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Demographic change and the demand for environmental regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew E. Kahn

    (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

Abstract

Environmental regulation in the United States has increased pollution abatement expenditure as a percentage of gross national product from 1.7 percent in 1972 to an estimated 2.6 percent in the year 2000. This rise in regulation has coincided with demographic and economic changes that include rising educational levels, a growing minority population, an aging population, and decreasing employment in polluting industries. This paper examines whether these trends have contributed to increasing aggregate demand for environmental regulation. New evidence on voting on environmental ballots in California, local government environmental expenditures across the United States, and 25 years of congressional voting on environmental issues is examined to document the demographic correlates of environmental support. Minorities and the more educated are more pro-green, whereas manufacturing workers oppose environmental regulation. While demographics help explain observed differences in environmental support and thus can help predict long trends in the “average voter's” environmentalism, environmentalism varies substantially year to year unrelated to population demographics. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew E. Kahn, 2002. "Demographic change and the demand for environmental regulation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 45-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:21:y:2002:i:1:p:45-62
    DOI: 10.1002/pam.1039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/pam.1039
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pam.1039?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dean, Judith M., 1992. "Trade and the environment : a survey of the literature," Policy Research Working Paper Series 966, The World Bank.
    2. Gary S. Becker & Casey B. Mulligan, 1997. "The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 729-758.
    3. Pashigian, B Peter, 1985. "Environmental Regulation: Whose Self-interests Are Being Protected?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(4), pages 551-584, October.
    4. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    5. James M. Poterba, 1997. "Demographic structure and the political economy of public education," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 48-66.
    6. Lee A. Lillard & Robert J. Willis, 1994. "Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Effects of Family and State in Malaysia," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 1126-1166.
    7. Selden Thomas M. & Song Daqing, 1995. "Neoclassical Growth, the J Curve for Abatement, and the Inverted U Curve for Pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 162-168, September.
    8. John G. Matsusaka, 1992. "Economics of Direct Legislation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 541-571.
    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. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Andrew K. Rose, 2005. "Is Trade Good or Bad for the Environment? Sorting Out the Causality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 85-91, February.
    2. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2003. "The Environment and Globalization," NBER Working Papers 10090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Sturm, Daniel & Ulph, Alistair, 2002. "Environment, trade, political economy and imperfect information: a survey," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0204, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    4. Gabriela Michalek & Reimund Schwarze, 2015. "Carbon leakage: pollution, trade or politics?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 1471-1492, December.
    5. Lawn, Philip & Clarke, Matthew, 2010. "The end of economic growth? A contracting threshold hypothesis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2213-2223, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Chahreddine ABBES, 2009. "When Free Trade is Good for the Environment?," EcoMod2009 21500000, EcoMod.
    8. Yakovlev, Pavel A. & Tosun, Mehmet S. & Lewis, William P., 2018. "The Fiscal Consequences of State Legislative Term Limits," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), January.
    9. Arik Levinson, 2001. "An Industry-Adjusted Index of State Environmental Compliance Costs," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 131-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Vladimir Kühl Teles & Ronaldo A. Arraes, 2004. "Environmental Protection And Economic Growth," Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 044, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    11. Shelby Gerking, 1998. "Spatial economic aspects of the environment and environmental policy: New directions for research," ERSA conference papers ersa98p384, European Regional Science Association.
    12. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    13. Simone Borghesi & Chiara Franco & Giovanni Marin, 2020. "Outward Foreign Direct Investment Patterns of Italian Firms in the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(1), pages 219-256, January.
    14. Grote, U. & Deblitz, C. & Stegmann, S., 2001. "Umweltstandards und internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit: Fallstudienergebnisse für ausgewählte Agrarhandelsprodukte aus Brasilien, Deutschland und Indonesien," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 37.
    15. Gallagher, Kevin P. & Ackerman, Frank, 2000. "Trade Liberalization and Pollution Intensive Industry in Developing Countries: A Partial Equilibrium Approach," Working Papers 15592, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute.
    16. Blackman, Allen & Mathis, Mitchell & Nelson, Peter, 2001. "The Greening of Development Economics: A Survey," Discussion Papers 10662, Resources for the Future.
    17. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    18. Frank Ackerman & Kevin Gallagher, "undated". "Trade Liberalization and Pollution Intensive Industries in Developing Countries: A Partial Equilibrium Approach," GDAE Working Papers 00-03, GDAE, Tufts University.
    19. He, Jie, 2006. "Pollution haven hypothesis and environmental impacts of foreign direct investment: The case of industrial emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in Chinese provinces," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 228-245, November.
    20. Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2005. "Economic growth and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1219-1271, Elsevier.

    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:wly:jpamgt:v:21:y:2002:i:1:p:45-62. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    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.