 Regulatory spillover and climate co-benefits: Evidence from New Source Review lawsuitsHei Sing Chan () and Yichen Zhou Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2021, vol. 110, issue C Abstract: Though policies on greenhouse gas emissions have been shown to generate benefits in reducing local pollutants such as SO2 and NOx, spillover benefits in the reverse direction have not been well studied. This paper estimates one such spillover by examining how SO2 and NOx regulations of the New Source Review affect CO2 emissions of US power plants. We address the ambiguity surrounding the stringency of enforcement of the regulations by using a discrete-time duration model that allows us to predict the likelihood of being named in a lawsuit, and to use this likelihood as a continuous treatment variable. We find that a 1 percent increase in the probability of being sued reduces CO2 emissions by 0.3 percent, an effect comparable to a carbon tax of $10 per ton. Further decomposition analysis suggests that most of these carbon co-benefits arise from the shutdown of both coal-fired-only power plants and certain power-generating units. Keywords: New Source Review; Environmental lawsuits; Pollution emissions; Climate policies; Fuel switches (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:110:y:2021:i:c:s0095069621001042 DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2021.102545 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier |
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