TY  - JOUR
AU  - Berman,Eli
AU  - Bui,Linda T.
TI  - band Labor Demand: Evidence from the South Coast Air Basin
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6299
PY  - 1997
Y2  - December 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6299
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6299.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Eli Berman
Department of Economics, 508
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA  92093
Tel: 858/534-2858
Fax: 858/534-7040
E-Mail: elib@ucsd.edu
AB  - 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.
ER  -