What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality

Janet Currie, John Voorheis and Reed Walker

American Economic Review, 2023, vol. 113, issue 1, 71-97

Abstract: This project links administrative census microdata to spatially continuous measures of particulate pollution (PM2.5) to first document and then decompose the key drivers of convergence in black-white pollution exposure differences. We use quantile regression to show that a significant portion of the convergence in Black-White exposure is attributable to differential impacts of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in Black and White communities. Areas with larger Black populations saw greater CAA-related declines in PM2.5. We show that the CAA can account for over 60 percent of the racial convergence in PM2.5 pollution exposure in the United States since 2000.

JEL-codes: J15 K32 Q51 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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Related works:
Working Paper: What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality (2021)
Working Paper: What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality (2020)
Working Paper: What Caused Racial Disparities in Particulate Exposure to Fall? New Evidence from the Clean Air Act and Satellite-Based Measures of Air Quality (2020)
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DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191957

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