[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/renvpo/doi10.1086-718054.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pollution Trends and US Environmental Policy: Lessons from the Past Half Century

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph S. Shapiro
Abstract
This article proposes and evaluates four hypotheses about US pollution and environmental policy over the past half century. First, air and water pollution has declined substantially, although greenhouse gas emissions have not. Second, environmental policy explains a large share of these trends. Third, much of the regulation of air and drinking water pollution has benefits that exceed costs, although the evidence for surface water pollution regulation is less clear. Fourth, while the distribution of pollution across social groups is unequal, market-based environmental policies and command and control policies do not appear to produce systematically different distributions of environmental outcomes. I also discuss recent innovations in methods and data that can be used to evaluate pollution trends and policies, including the increased use of environmental administrative data, statistical benefit–cost comparisons, analysis of previously understudied policies, more sophisticated analyses of pollution transport, micro-macro frameworks, and a focus on the distribution of environmental outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph S. Shapiro, 2022. "Pollution Trends and US Environmental Policy: Lessons from the Past Half Century," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 42-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:renvpo:doi:10.1086/718054
    DOI: 10.1086/718054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/718054
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/718054
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/718054?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhaoxu Sun & Lingdi Zhao & Haixia Wang, 2024. "Environmental Health Crises and Public Health Outcomes: Using China’s Empirical Data to Verify the Joint Role of Environmental Regulation and Internet Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Marin Skidmore & Tihitina Andarge & Jeremy Foltz, 2023. "Effectiveness of local regulations on nonpoint source pollution: Evidence from Wisconsin dairy farms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(5), pages 1333-1364, October.
    3. Raff, Zach & Meyer, Andrew & Walter, Jason M., 2022. "Political differences in air pollution abatement under the Clean Air Act," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Karwowski, Nicole & Hrozencik, Robert A. & Skidmore, Marin & Rosenberg, Andrew B., 2024. "Water Quality and the Conservation Reserve Program: Empirical Evidence from the Mississippi River Basin," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343739, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:renvpo:doi:10.1086/718054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/REEP .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.