When Do Environmental Externalities Have Electoral Consequences? Evidence from Fracking

Judson Boomhower

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2024, vol. 11, issue 4, 999 - 1029

Abstract: This study measures the role of environmental issues in concurrent elections for governors and specialized energy regulators in two energy-producing US states. Campaign news coverage reveals much more attention to environment and energy in the energy regulator races, even though both offices have influence over these issues. I then use geologic variation in fracking-related earthquakes to measure the electoral consequences of a costly environmental externality. Incumbent vote share decreases and turnout increases for the energy regulator, while there are no measurable effects for governor. These outcomes are consistent with theories of issue bundling, in which the electoral salience of some topics is diminished when one politician has authority over many issues.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/728467 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/728467 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/728467

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().