The Airborne Toxic Event: The Effects of Socioeconomic Characteristics on Ambient Air Pollution and the Decision to Over Pollute

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Last Modified
  • May 15, 2020
Creator
  • Harrison Cho
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics
Abstract
  • As policy solutions for climate change are adopted at an increasing rate, it is integral to prioritize environmental equity strategies, those that allow socioeconomic minorities access to proper resources and decision making power. One argument for this change follows from the inequitable distribution of pollution throughout the United States, a topic whose history is steeped in complex networks of historical discrimination. In order to account for these past trends, this paper utilizes a dynamic panel model to test whether socioeconomic characteristics affect changes in air pollution within the United States between 2010 and 2017. Utilizing stationary electric utilities throughout the contiguous United States, I tabulate changes in three air pollutants with weighted proportions of socioeconomic characteristics in nearby census tract. As a significant and prevalent source of pollution throughout the United States, power plants are an important and generalizable determinant of ambient air quality. To mitigate heterogeneity resulting from time sensitive and location sensitive trends, I incorporate spatially and temporally lagged variables for pollutant measures and socioeconomic characteristics, respectively. Utilizing GMM to measure estimates, I find that race, wealth, education, and age are significant determinants of air quality. Although subsequent improvements can be incorporated for the model’s internal validity, historical inequity is still an important determinant for pollution distribution in the present.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Dr. Andrew Yates
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics
Degree
  • Bachelor of Science
Graduation year
  • 2020
Language
  • English

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