band Labor Demand: Evidence from the South Coast Air Basin / Eli Berman, Linda T. Bui.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berman, Eli.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bui, Linda T.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6299.

NBER working paper series no. w6299

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

band Labor Demand

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1997.

Summary:

The devolved nature of environmental regulation provides an excellent opportunity for" estimating the effects of regulation on employment, by generating rich variation in regulation" across regions and over time. We exploit this variation using direct measures of regulation and" plant data. We estimate the employment effects of an unprecedented increase in air quality" regulation in the Los Angeles region, using unregulated plants in other regions years for comparison. While environmental regulation is generally thought to reduce" employment, economic theory is ambiguous on this point, since pollution abatement technologies" may be labor using. We find that air quality regulation induced very expensive investments in" abatement capital for individual plants, especially for oil refineries. Despite these high costs we" find no evidence that environmental regulation decreased labor demand induced plant exit and dissuaded plant entry. If anything, air quality regulation probably inc-" reased employment slightly.

Notes:

Print version record

December 1997.