Do EPA Regulations Affect Labor Demand? Evidence from the Pulp and Paper Industry

Ron Shadbegian, Wayne Gray, Chumbei Wang and Merve Cebi
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Merve Meral ()

No 201303, NCEE Working Paper Series from National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract: Many believe that environmental regulation must reduce employment, since regulations are expected to increase production costs, raising prices and reducing demand for output. A careful microeconomic analysis shows that this not guaranteed. Even if environmental regulation reduces output in the regulated industry, abating pollution could require additional labor (e.g. to monitor the abatement capital and meet EPA reporting requirements). Pollution abatement technologies could also be labor enhancing. In this paper we analyze how a particular EPA regulation, the “Cluster Rule” (CR) imposed on the pulp and paper industry in 2001, affected employment in that sector. Using establishment level data from the Census of Manufacturers and Annual Survey of Manufacturers at the U.S. Census Bureau from 1992-2007 we find evidence of small employment declines (on the order of 3%-7%), sometimes statistically significant, at a subset of the plants covered by the CR.

Keywords: Cluster Rule; regulatory costs; multimedia regulation; employment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q52 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2013-08, Revised 2013-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Do EPA regulations affect labor demand? Evidence from the pulp and paper industry (2014)
Working Paper: Do EPA Regulations Affect Labor Demand? Evidence From the Pulp and Paper Industry (2013)
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