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Pollution and Human Capital Migration: Evidence from Corporate Executives

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  • Ross Levine
  • Chen Lin
  • Zigan Wang

Abstract

We study the impact of pollution on the migration of high human capital employees. We link data on the opening of toxic-emitting plants with the career paths of executives at S&P 1500 firms. We discover that toxic-emitting plant openings increase executive departures from neighboring firms with adverse effects on stock prices. The results: are larger when polluting plants and firms are geographically closer, hold only for executives physically-based at treated firms, hold only for the opening of polluting plants, do not reflect other local factors or prior stock price performance, and are larger among executives with more general human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Ross Levine & Chen Lin & Zigan Wang, 2018. "Pollution and Human Capital Migration: Evidence from Corporate Executives," NBER Working Papers 24389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24389
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    Cited by:

    1. Hao, Ying & Huang, Lixin & Huang, Yuxiu & Wei, Zi, 2023. "Air quality and CEO cross–regional turnover ——The role of compensation or incentive," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Garel, Alexandre & Petit-Romec, Arthur, 2022. "CEO exposure to abnormally hot temperature and corporate carbon emissions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    3. Ying Tung Chan, 2019. "Optimal Environmental Tax Rate in an Open Economy with Labor Migration—An E-DSGE Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-38, September.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

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