Regulation-Induced Pollution Substitution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gibson, Matthew
• 署名单位: Williams College
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00797
• 发表日期: 2019-12
• 页码: 827-840
• 关键词: clean-air act; environmental-regulation; internal structure; ENFORCEMENT; LABOR; COMPETITION; elasticity; panel

摘要

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%.