Do Air Pollution Regulations Increase Water and Ground Pollution Emissions? Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector

• Activity Number: 4
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 11, 2002 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics & the Environment*
• Author(s): Michael Greenstone*+
• Affiliation(s): University of Chicago
• Keywords: clean air act ; manufacturing ; water pollution ; toxic releases inventory ; environmental regulation ; propensity score ; air pollution ; land pollution

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of air pollution regulations--measured by the Clean Air Act Amendment's division of counties into pollutant-specific nonattainment and attainment categories--on manufacturing plants' release of regulated pollutants. Emitters of the controlled pollutants in nonattainment counties are subject to greater regulatory oversight than emitters in attainment counties. The analysis relies on data from the 1987-97 Toxic Releases Inventory that contains plant-level releases of more than 600 toxics into the environment, including whether the release was into the air, water, or ground. These data are combined with data on counties' attainment/nonattainment designations to test whether nonattainment status causes manufacturers to substitute air releases for releases into other media. In addition to least squares regression, the paper will use propensity-score matching to identify "similar" plants in nonattainment and attainment counties.