What Do Economists Have to Say about the Clean Air Act 50 Years after the Establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency?

Janet Currie and Reed Walker

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2019, vol. 33, issue 4, 3-26

Abstract: Air quality in the United States has improved dramatically over the past 50 years in large part due to the introduction of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce it. This article is a reflection on the 50-year anniversary of the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency, describing what economic research says about the ways in which the Clean Air Act has shaped our society—in terms of costs, benefits, and important distributional concerns. We conclude with a discussion of how recent changes to both policy and technology present new opportunities for researchers in this area.

JEL-codes: A11 K32 Q53 Q55 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.33.4.3
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.33.4.3 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.33.4.3.ds (application/zip)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:33:y:2019:i:4:p:3-26

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().