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Robust inference concerning recent trends in US environmental quality

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Author Info

  • Daniel L. Millimet

    (Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA)

  • Esfandiar Maasoumi

    (Department of Economics, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA)

Abstract

Understanding trends in environmental quality is important for individuals and policymakers. Typically, trends in environmental quality are determined solely through comparisons of unconditional or conditional mean pollution levels. However, reaching unambiguous conclusions on the basis of only the first moment of the (unconditional or conditional) distribution is problematic since it ignores what is occurring in different regions of the distribution. Even relying on indices that incorporate both mean and variance is suspect to the extent that relative rankings are not typically robust to index choice. Addressing these concerns, we adapt recent developments in the stochastic dominance literature to test for unambiguous relations between current and past distributions of toxic releases. Using EPA data from 1988-1999, we find statistically significant evidence that the unconditional 1999 distributions of air, land, underground and total toxic releases dominate in a first-degree sense their respective 1988 distributions. While some of this improvement is explained by economic growth, pollution net-of-income improved over the sample period as well. Finally, we document robust differences in the distribution of pollution across regions in the US. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jae.759
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File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2005-v20.1/
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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Journal of Applied Econometrics.

Volume (Year): 20 (2005)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 55-77

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Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:20:y:2005:i:1:p:55-77

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References

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  4. Daniel L. Millimet & John A. List & Thanasis Stengos, 2003. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Real Progress or Misspecified Models?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1038-1047, November.
  5. Heshmati, Almas & Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 1998. "Stochastic Dominance Amongst Swedish Income Distributions," Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 279, Stockholm School of Economics.
  6. Hirschberg, J.G. & Maasoumi, E. & Slottje, D.J., 2001. "Clusters of Attributes and Well-Being in the US," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 778, The University of Melbourne.
  7. Kahn, Matthew E., 1999. "The Silver Lining of Rust Belt Manufacturing Decline," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 360-376, November.
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  9. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Whang, 2005. "Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance under General Sampling Schemes," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 735-765, 07.
  10. Abadie A., 2002. "Bootstrap Tests for Distributional Treatment Effects in Instrumental Variable Models," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 284-292, March.
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  12. Bishop, John A. & Formby, John P. & Zeager, Lester A., 2000. "The effect of food stamp cashout on undernutrition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 75-85, April.
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  16. Linton, Oliver & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2003. "Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance under General Sampling Schemes," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 2003,31, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
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Cited by:
  1. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2002. "Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance: A Subsampling Approach," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1356, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Mar 2002.
  2. Esfandiar Maasoumi & Daniel L. Millimet & Dipanwita Sarkar, 2009. "Who Benefits from Marriage?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 1-33, 02.
  3. Chintrakarn, Pandej & Millimet, Daniel, 2005. "The Environmental Consequences of Trade: Evidence from Subnational Trade Flows," Departmental Working Papers 0501, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
  4. Eren, Ozkan & Millimet, Daniel, 2005. "Time to Learn? The Organizational Structure of Schools and Student Achievement," Departmental Working Papers 0506, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
  5. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Millimet, Daniel & Sarkar, Dipanwita, 2005. "The Distribution of Returns to Marriage," Departmental Working Papers 0503, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
  6. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Heshmati, Almas, 2005. "Evaluating Dominance Ranking of PSID Incomes by Various Household Attributes," IZA Discussion Papers 1727, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  7. Carlos A. Flores & Alfonso Flores-Lagunes & Dimitrios Kapetanakis, 2009. "Lessons from Quantile Panel Estimation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Working Papers 2010-4, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
  8. Shimshack, Jay P. & Ward, Michael B. & Beatty, Timothy K.M., 2007. "Mercury advisories: Information, education, and fish consumption," MPRA Paper 25995, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  9. Millimet, Daniel & Wang, Le, 2005. "Is the Quantity-Quality Trade-off Really a Trade-off for All?," Departmental Working Papers 0502, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.

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