Clean protectionism? Coal mining and crime in India

Travis Roach, Saheli Nath and Chintamani Jog

Applied Economics Letters, 2025, vol. 32, issue 9, 1257-1263

Abstract: Combating climate change requires new policies that may disrupt labour markets in mining-intensive areas and lead to unintended consequences. In this study, we use the universe of criminal cases filed in India over a decade, nearly 10 million cases, to study the effect of the ‘Clean Energy Cess’ on crime in coal-mining-intensive areas. This new carbon dioxide tax equivalent may disrupt local labour markets in coal-mining areas which could lead to higher crime rates. Surprisingly, we find that the new tax on coal had no effect on crime. This null result is consistent across all models and remains when we only consider criminal cases with male defendants. Country-wide data on domestic and imported coal shows that this may be due to the fact that only imported coal consumption fell after the Cess was introduced.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2024.2302888

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