IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2012.97.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unbundling Technology Adoption and tfp at the Firm Level. Do Intangibles Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Y.H. Farzin

    (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California)

  • C.A. Bond

    (RAND Corporation)

Abstract

When it comes to environmental quality preferences, it is popularly believed that Democrats (and more generally, liberals) are “green” while Republicans” (conservatives) are “brown”. Does empirical evidence support this popular belief? We test the hypothesis that regional political identification leads to differences in concentration outcomes for several measures of California air pollution indicators, including CO, NO2, SO2, O3, PM10, and PM2.5 concentrations. We employ two alternative identification strategies on county-level cluster and year panel data that include proxy variables for political party preferences of the local populace, as well as controlling for the political party affiliations at the state-level legislative and executive branches. In general, we do not find a consistent and statistically significant relationship between pollution outcomes and political variables for California. The popular belief is empirically supported only for NO2 and O3, but not for any of the other pollutants, and even in these two cases the relationship only holds at the local regulatory level and not at the state policymaking level. At the state level, for most of the pollutants no significant effect of party affiliation is identified, and in the rare cases where such an effect exists, it is either too weak to be conclusive or is even counter to popular belief.

Suggested Citation

  • Y.H. Farzin & C.A. Bond, 2012. "Unbundling Technology Adoption and tfp at the Firm Level. Do Intangibles Matter?," Working Papers 2012.97, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.97
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.feem.it/userfiles/attach/20131141644304NDL2012-097.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:adr:anecst:y:2004:i:75-76:p:11 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. B. Mak Arvin & Byron Lew, 2009. "Does democracy affect environmental quality in developing countries?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(9), pages 1151-1160.
    3. Pashigian, B Peter, 1985. "Environmental Regulation: Whose Self-interests Are Being Protected?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(4), pages 551-584, October.
    4. Y. H. Farzin, 2004. "Can Stricter Environmental Standards Benefit the Industry and Enhance Welfare," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 75-76, pages 223-255.
    5. Kahn, Matthew E., 2007. "Do greens drive Hummers or hybrids? Environmental ideology as a determinant of consumer choice," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 129-145, September.
    6. Farzin, Y. Hossein & Bond, Craig A., 2006. "Democracy and environmental quality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 213-235, October.
    7. Kahn, Matthew E & Matsusaka, John G, 1997. "Demand for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Voting Patterns on California Initiatives," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 137-173, April.
    8. Arellano, Manuel, 2003. "Panel Data Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199245291.
    9. Meilanie Buitenzorgy & Arthur P. J. Mol, 2011. "Does Democracy Lead to a Better Environment? Deforestation and the Democratic Transition Peak," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(1), pages 59-70, January.
    10. repec:adr:anecst:y:2004:i:75-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Ross McKitrick, 2006. "The politics of pollution: party regimes and air quality in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 604-620, May.
    12. Lopez, Ramon & Mitra, Siddhartha, 2000. "Corruption, Pollution, and the Kuznets Environment Curve," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 137-150, September.
    13. Farzin, Y H, 2003. "The Effects of Emissions Standards on Industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 315-327, November.
    14. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Party Affiliation; Environmental Regulation; Air Pollution;

    JEL classification:

    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

    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:fem:femwpa:2012.97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (barbara racah). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.