The political economy of environmental legislation: evidence from the British Parliament

Morakinyo O. Adetutu ()
Additional contact information
Morakinyo O. Adetutu: Loughborough University

Public Choice, 2025, vol. 203, issue 1, No 10, 205-235

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates how local air quality influences UK Parliament members’ votes on environmental and climate change legislation. Using micro-spatial information at the 1 km-by-1 km grid level, I link local air quality to members of UK parliament (MPs') voting records from 2009 to 2019. I find compelling evidence that MPs representing highly polluted areas are more likely to vote against stringent environmental legislation. I also provide evidence that local political economy considerations constrain pro-environmental voting behaviour: industrialization exacerbates the negative relationship between pollution and pro-environmental voting behaviour by further discouraging MPs representing industrial areas from supporting stringent environmental legislations. These findings underscore the public choice trade-offs between enacting stringent climate change policies and preserving local industry and jobs.

Keywords: Air quality; Local pollution; Voting behaviour; Gridded data; Members of the UK Parliament (MPs) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D72 Q53 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-024-01193-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:pubcho:v:203:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-024-01193-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-024-01193-x

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().