Title

Measuring the effects of air quality regulations on "dirty" firm births: Evidence from the neo- and mature-regulatory periods

Authors

Authors

J. A. List;W. W. McHone

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Pap. Reg. Sci.

Keywords

firm location; environmental regulations; ENVIRONMENTAL-REGULATION; LOCATION; Economics; Environmental Studies; Geography

Abstract

In this article, we use annual (1980-90) county-level manufacturing plant location data for New York State to examine the effects of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments on the location decisions of new pollution-intensive manufacturing plants in the "neo-regulatory" (1980-84) and "mature-regulatory" (1985-90) phases of the Act's implementation. Our results suggest that the temporal effects of regulation vary. Whereas the location decisions of pollution intensive manufacturing firms were unaffected by the Act's regulatory restrictions in the "neo-regulatory" period, the restrictions appear to have had a significant negative impact on the location decisions of these types of firms in the Act's "mature-regulatory" phase. The diversion of new pollution intensive plants to counties with less stringent environmental regulations suggests that current US environmental regulations may be leading to a "browning process" whereby counties historically free of pollution become havens fur polluters, JEL classification: Q28, R38, R30.

Journal Title

Papers in Regional Science

Volume

79

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2000

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

177

Last Page

190

WOS Identifier

WOS:000087475900005

ISSN

1056-8190

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