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Jobs Versus the Environment: An Industry-Level Perspective

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  • Morgenstern, Richard D.
  • Pizer, William A.
  • Shih, Jhih-Shyang

Abstract

The possibility that workers could be adversely affected by environmental policies imposed on heavily regulated industries has led to claims of a "jobs versus the environment" trade-off by both business and labor leaders. The present research examines this claim at the industry level for four heavily polluting industries: pulp and paper mills, plastic manufacturers, petroleum refiners, and iron and steel mills. By focusing on labor effects across an entire industry, we construct a measure relevant to the concerns of key stakeholders, such as labor unions and trade groups. We decompose the link between environmental regulation and employment into three distinct components: factor shifts to more or less labor intensity, changes in total expenditures, and changes in the quantity of output demanded. We use detailed plant-level data to estimate the key parameters describing factor shifts and changes in total expenditures. We then use aggregate time-series data on industry supply shocks and output responses to estimate the demand effect. We find that increased environmental spending generally does not cause a significant change in industry-level employment. Our average across all four industries is a net gain of 1.5 jobs per $1 million in additional environmental spending, with a standard error of 2.2 jobs—an insignificant effect. In the plastics and petroleum sectors, however, there are small but significantly positive effects: 6.9 and 2.2 jobs, respectively, per $1 million in additional expenditures. These effects can be linked to favorable factor shifts—environmental spending is more labor intensive than ordinary production—and relatively inelastic estimated demand.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Volume (Year): 43 (2002)
Issue (Month): 3 (May)
Pages: 412-436

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Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:43:y:2002:i:3:p:412-436

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870

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References

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  1. Henderson, J Vernon, 1996. "Effects of Air Quality Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 789-813, September.
  2. Randy A Becker & Vernon Henderson, 1999. "Costs of Air Quality Regulation," Working Papers 99-9, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Randy A. Becker & J. Vernon Henderson, 2001. "Costs of Air Quality Regulation," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 159-186 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Hazilla, Michael & Kopp, Raymond J, 1990. "Social Cost of Environmental Quality Regulations: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 853-73, August.
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  6. Virginia D. McConnell & Robert M. Schwab, 1990. "The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Industry Location Decisions: The Motor Vehicle Industry," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 66(1), pages 67-81.
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  10. Eli Berman & Linda T. Bui, 1997. "band Labor Demand: Evidence from the South Coast Air Basin," NBER Working Papers 6299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Levinson, Arik, 1996. "Environmental regulations and manufacturers' location choices: Evidence from the Census of Manufactures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1-2), pages 5-29, October.
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  14. Diewert, W Erwin, 1978. "Superlative Index Numbers and Consistency in Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 883-900, July.
  15. Jorgenson, Dale W., 1986. "Econometric methods for modeling producer behavior," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1841-1915 Elsevier.
  16. Hausman, Jerry A., 1985. "Taxes and labor supply," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 213-263 Elsevier.
  17. Kahn, Matthew E., 1997. "Particulate pollution trends in the United States," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 87-107, February.
  18. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318 Elsevier.
  19. repec:fth:harver:1487 is not listed on IDEAS
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Randy A. Becker & Ronald J. Shadbegian & Carl Pasurka, 2012. "Do Environmental Regulations Disproportionately Affect Small Businesses? Evidence from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures Survey," NCEE Working Paper Series 201206, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Sep 2012.
  2. Marcus Wagner, 2004. "The Porter Hypothesis Revisited: A Literature Review of Theoretical Models and Empirical Tests," Public Economics 0407014, EconWPA.
  3. Lynn Mainwaring & Richard Jones & David Blackaby, 2006. "Devolution, sustainability and GDP convergence: Is the Welsh agenda achievable?," Regional Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 679-689.
  4. Aldy, Joseph Edgar & Pizer, William, 2011. "The Competitiveness Impacts of Climate Change Mitigation Policies," Scholarly Articles 5688779, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
  5. Matthew A Cole & Robert J R Elliott & Joanne K Lindley, 2009. "Dirty Money: Is there a Wage Premium for Working in a Pollution Intensive Industry," Discussion Papers 09-13, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
  6. Timothy J. Bartik, 2013. "Social Costs of Jobs Lost Due to Environmental Regulations," Upjohn Working Papers and Journal Articles 13-193, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
  7. Pizer, William A. & Kopp, Raymond, 2005. "Calculating the Costs of Environmental Regulation," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1307-1351 Elsevier.

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