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Polluting Politics

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  • Louis-Philippe Beland
  • Vincent Boucher

Abstract

This paper estimates the causal impact of party affiliation (Republican or Democrat) of U.S. governors on pollution. Using a regression discontinuity design, gubernatorial election data, and air quality data from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we find that pollution is lower under Democratic governors. We identify that this is mostly due to environmental policies enacted by Democratic governors.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis-Philippe Beland & Vincent Boucher, 2015. "Polluting Politics," Cahiers de recherche 1513, CIRPEE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1513
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    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    2. Louis-Philippe Beland & Sara Oloomi, 2017. "Party Affiliation And Public Spending: Evidence From U.S. Governors," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 982-995, April.
    3. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang, 2020. "The politics of environmental enforcement: the case of the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(6), pages 2593-2613, June.
    4. Aaron A. Elrod & Serkan Karadas & Katherine C. Theyson, 2019. "The effect of gubernatorial political parties on monitoring and enforcement of federal environmental regulation: evidence from the Clean Water Act," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(2), pages 171-202, April.
    5. Ortega, Alberto, 2020. "State partisanship and higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Matthew Doyle & Corrado Di Maria & Ian A. Lange & Emiliya Lazarova, 2016. "Electoral Incentives and Firm Behavior: Evidence from U.S. Power Plant Pollution Abatement," CESifo Working Paper Series 6127, CESifo.
    7. Hill, Andrew J. & Jones, Daniel B., 2017. "Does partisan affiliation impact the distribution of spending? Evidence from state governments’ expenditures on education," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 58-77.
    8. Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 6444, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Parties; Pollution; Air Quality; Regression Discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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