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Evaluating the effectiveness of mobile emission standards: Evidence from California’s LEV program

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  • Xiao, Yuxian

Abstract

While mobile-source emission standards have been widely implemented for decades, their effectiveness remains underexplored. This paper evaluates the impact of California’s Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) program on ambient air pollution by exploiting its staggered adoption across states. Using a large panel of monitor-day observations from 1985–2014 matched with daily weather data, I employ a modern staggered difference-in-differences framework to compare air-pollution trends in LEV and never-LEV states. The event-study results show no evidence of pre-trends and reveal a gradual build-up of treatment effects over roughly a decade after adoption. On average over the sample period, the LEV program reduces daily maximum ozone concentrations by 4.78%. The program’s impact is more pronounced during summer months and in urban and suburban regions, and these patterns are robust to restricting the sample to long-running monitors, excluding border monitors, and reweighting the data using a synthetic-control difference-in-differences procedure. These findings provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of vehicle-emission standards and contribute to the broader literature on environmental regulation and mobile-source pollution control.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao, Yuxian, 2026. "Evaluating the effectiveness of mobile emission standards: Evidence from California’s LEV program," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:138:y:2026:i:c:s0095069626000768
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2026.103356
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