Clean identification? The effects of the clean air act on air pollution, exposure disparities and house prices

Lutz Sager and Gregor Singer

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We assess the U.S. Clean Air Act standards for fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅). Using high resolution data, we find that the 2005 regulation reduced PM₂.₅ levels by 0.4μg/m³ over five years, with larger effects in more polluted areas. Standard difference-in-differences overstates these effects by a factor of three because time trends differ by baseline pollution, a bias we overcome with three alternative approaches. We show that the regulation contributed to narrowing Urban-Rural and Black-White PM₂.₅ exposure disparities, but less than difference-in-differences suggest. Pollution damages capitalized into house prices, on the other hand, appear larger than previously thought when leveraging regulatory variation.

JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2025-02-28
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Published in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 28, February, 2025, 17(1), pp. 1-36. ISSN: 1945-7731

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/121984/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Clean Identification? The Effects of the Clean Air Act on Air Pollution, Exposure Disparities, and House Prices (2025)
Working Paper: Clean identification? The effects of the Clean Air Act on air pollution, exposure disparities and house prices (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:121984

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