IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16131.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urban Policy Effects on Carbon Mitigation

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew E. Kahn

Abstract

The geographical location of economic activity within the United States has important implications for carbon mitigation. If households clustered in California's cities rather than in more humid southern cities such as Memphis and Houston, then the average household carbon footprint would be lower. Such households would consume less electricity and this power would be generated by cleaner electric utilities. Within metropolitan areas, urban economic theory predicts that households create less greenhouse gas emissions when they live closer to the city center. This study uses three data sets reporting on household driving, public transit use and residential electricity consumption to provide evidence in support of the claim of a negative association between center city living and a household's carbon footprint.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew E. Kahn, 2010. "Urban Policy Effects on Carbon Mitigation," NBER Working Papers 16131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16131
    Note: EEE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16131.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2010. "The greenness of cities: Carbon dioxide emissions and urban development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 404-418, May.
    2. Eid, Jean & Overman, Henry G. & Puga, Diego & Turner, Matthew A., 2008. "Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 385-404, March.
    3. Kevin A. Hassett & Aparna Mathur & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2009. "The Incidence of a U.S. Carbon Tax: A Lifetime and Regional Analysis," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 155-178.
    4. Julie Berry Cullen & Steven D. Levitt, 1999. "Crime, Urban Flight, And The Consequences For Cities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 159-169, May.
    5. Edward L. Glaeser & Matthew E. Kahn, 2001. "Decentralized Employment and the Transformation of the American City," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1912, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    6. John M. Quigley & Steven Raphael, 2005. "Regulation and the High Cost of Housing in California," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 323-328, May.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven Saks, 2003. "Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices," NBER Working Papers 10124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Noise in Cities
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2011-03-05 10:36:00
    2. Energy Consumption in the Suburbs
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2011-11-27 00:05:00
    3. The Cost of Urban Density
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2012-02-24 04:29:00
    4. The Future of California’s Suburbs
      by Matthew E. Kahn in Legal Planet on 2012-04-08 01:22:40

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Hamilton, Timothy L. & Wichman, Casey J., 2018. "Bicycle infrastructure and traffic congestion: Evidence from DC's Capital Bikeshare," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 72-93.
    2. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2012. "Population density and efficiency in energy consumption: An empirical analysis of service establishments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1617-1622.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kahn, Matthew E. & Walsh, Randall, 2015. "Cities and the Environment," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 405-465, Elsevier.
    2. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2015. "Urban Land Use," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 467-560, Elsevier.
    3. François Ortalo-Magné & Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Political Economy of Housing Supply," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000954, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    5. Bento, Antonio M. & Franco, Sofia F. & Kaffine, Daniel, 2011. "Is there a double-dividend from anti-sprawl policies?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 135-152, March.
    6. Hilber, Christian A.L. & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2013. "On the origins of land use regulations: Theory and evidence from US metro areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 29-43.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2006. "Urban Resurgence and the Consumer City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 1275-1299, July.
    8. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E. & Rappaport, Jordan, 2008. "Why do the poor live in cities The role of public transportation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-24, January.
    9. William A. Testa & William Sander, 2016. "Household Location and Economic Development in the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 30(3), pages 232-238, August.
    10. William Sander & William Testa, 2013. "Education and the location of work: a continued economic role for central cities?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(2), pages 577-590, April.
    11. Siqi Zheng & Matthew E. Kahn, 2013. "Understanding China's Urban Pollution Dynamics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 731-772, September.
    12. Twinam, Tate, 2017. "Danger zone: Land use and the geography of neighborhood crime," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 104-119.
    13. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Stephen L., 2015. "Change and Persistence in the Economic Status of Neighborhoods and Cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1047-1120, Elsevier.
    14. Andrew Perumal & David Timmons, 2017. "Contextual Density and US Automotive CO2 Emissions across the Rural–Urban Continuum," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 590-615, November.
    15. Leah Platt Boustan & Devin Michelle Bunten & Owen Hearey, 2013. "Urbanization in the United States, 1800-2000," NBER Working Papers 19041, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Holian, Matthew J. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2015. "Household carbon emissions from driving and center city quality of life," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 362-368.
    17. Matthew J. Holian & Matthew E. Kahn, 2014. "Household Demand for Low Carbon Public Policies: Evidence from California," NBER Working Papers 19965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. William Sander & William Testa, 2015. "Parents' education, school-age children and household location in American cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(3), pages 573-595, August.
    19. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2004. "Sprawl and urban growth," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 56, pages 2481-2527, Elsevier.
    20. Matthew J. Holian & Matthew E. Kahn, 2013. "The Rise of the Low Carbon Consumer City," NBER Working Papers 18735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • R0 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General

    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:nbr:nberwo:16131. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.