Essays on the Health, Wage and Employment Effects of the U.S. Clean Air Act
Abraham, Caroline Elizabeth
0000-0002-3365-4233
:
2020-05-19
Abstract
This dissertation considers the health and labour market implications of the U.S. Clean Air Act. Chapter 1 exploits the exogeneous variation provided by the 1990 Amendment of the U.S. Clean Air Act in order to test the hypothesis that environmental regulation aimed at air pollution had a direct impact on adult mortality. Using data from 1987 to 2016, I find that the 1990 Amendment reduced the age-adjusted respiratory mortality rates by 14.2 % for counties that were in nonattainment for ozone, and 9.4 % for counties that were in nonattainment for particulate matter after controlling for lung cancer fatalities. Chapter 2 looks at the wage and employment effects of the regulations set forth by the 1990 Amendment in the pharmaceutical industry. I find that while the CAA had a positive impact on wages, the evidence on its effects on employment is more mixed. These effects disappear when county data is collapsed to the state level.