Download or read book Environmental Regulation and Manufacturing Productivity at the Plant Level written by Wayne B. Gray and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We analyze the connection between productivity, pollution abatement expenditures, and other measures of environmental regulation for plants in three industries (paper, oil, and steel). We examine data from 1979 to 1985, considering, both labor and total factor productivity, both levels and growth rates, and both annual measures and averages over the period. We find a strong connection between regulation and productivity when regulation is measured by compliance costs. More regulated plants have significantly lower productivity levels and slower productivity growth rates than less regulated plants. The magnitude of the impacts are larger than expected: a $1 increase in compliance costs appears to reduce TFP by the equivalent of $3 to $4. Thus, commonly used methods of calculating the impact of regulation on productivity are substantially underestimated. Other measures of regulation (compliance status, enforcement activity, and emissions) show much less consistent results. Higher enforcement, lower compliance, and higher emissions are generally associated with lower productivity levels and slower productivity growth, but the coefficients are rarely significant.

Download or read book Environmental Regulation Amd Manufacturing Productivity at the Plant Level written by Wayne Burger Gray and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Local Environmental Regulation and Plant level Productivity written by Randy A. Becker and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation on the productivity of manufacturing plants in the United States. Establishment-level data from three Censuses of Manufactures are used to estimate 3-factor Cobb-Douglas production functions that include a measure of the stringency of environmental regulation faced by manufacturing plants. In contrast to previous studies, this paper examines effects on plants in all manufacturing industries, not just those in "dirty" industries. Further, this paper employs spatial-temporal variation in environmental compliance costs to identify effects, using a time-varying county-level index that is based on multiple years of establishment-level data from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey and the Annual Survey of Manufactures. Results suggest that, for the average manufacturing plant, the effect on productivity of being in a county with higher environmental compliance costs is relatively small and often not statistically significant. For the average plant, the main effect of environmental regulation may not be in the spatial and temporal dimensions.

Download or read book Decentralized Environmental Regulations and Plant level Productivity written by Vivek Ghosal and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a unique plant-level dataset we examine total factor productivity (TFP) growth and its components, related to efficiency change and technical change. The data we use is from Sweden and for their pulp and paper industry, which is heavily regulated due to its historically large contribution to air and water pollution. Our paper contributes to the broader empirical literature on the Porter Hypothesis, which posits a positive relationship between environmental regulation and "green" TFP growth of firms. Our exercise is innovative as Sweden has a unique regulatory structure where the manufacturing plants have to comply with plant-specific regulatory standards stipulated at the national level, as well as decentralized local supervision and enforcement. Our key findings are: (1) prudential regulation limits expansion of plants with high initial pollution; (2) regulation, however, is not conducive to plants' "green" technical change, which provides evidence against the recast version of the Porter Hypothesis; (3) decentralized command-and-control regulation is prone to regulatory bias, entailing politically motivated discriminatory treatment of plants with otherwise equal characteristics.

Download or read book Environmental Regulation Abatement and Productivity written by Shital Sharma and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research studies the link between environmental regulation and plant level productivity in two U.S. manufacturing industries: pulp and paper mills and oil refineries using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models. Data on abatement spending, emissions and abated emissions are used in different DEA models to study plant productivity outcomes when accounting for abatement spending or emissions regulations. Results indicate that pulp and paper mills and oil refineries in the U.S. suffered decreases in productivity due to pollution abatement activities from 1974 to 2000. These losses in productivity are substantial but have been slowly trending downwards even when the regulations have tended to become more stringent and emission of pollutants has declined suggesting that the best practice has shifted over time. Results also show that the reported abatement expenditures are not able to explain all the losses arising out of regulation suggesting that these abatement expenditures are consistently under-reported.

Download or read book Environmental Regulation and Productivity written by Eli Berman and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine the effect of air quality regulation on the productivity of some of the most heavily regulated manufacturing plants in the United States, the oil refineries of the Los Angeles (South Coast) Air Basin. We use direct measures of local air pollution regulation in this region to estimate their effects on abatement investment. Refineries not subject to these local environmental regulations are used as a comparison group. We study the period of increased regulation between 1979 and 1992. On average each regulation cost $3M per plant on compliance dates and a further $5M per plant on dates of increased stringency. We also construct measures of total factor productivity using plant level data which allow us to observe physical quantities of inputs and outputs for the entire population of refineries. Despite the high costs associated with the local regulations, productivity in the Los Angeles Air Basin refineries rose sharply during the 1987 - 1992 period, a period of decreased refinery productivity in other regions. We conclude that measures of the cost of environmental regulation may be significantly overstated. The gross costs may be far greater than the net cost, as abatement may be productive

Download or read book The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Competitiveness in the German Manufacturing Industry written by Ursula Triebswetter and published by Peter Lang Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines in three case studies whether German plants suffer from a negative impact on competitiveness caused by stringent environmental legislation. A micro level analysis showed that abatement initiatives had in general been implemented without economic damage and did not touch on the core business. Moreover, German sample plants ranked environmental pressure as relatively unimportant compared with other competitive pressures. Finally, the low absolute levels of compliance costs, at least in two of the case studies, explained why environmental regulation cannot have a great influence on competitiveness in the chosen sectors. High productivity levels were not among the essential factors explaining our findings. It implies for our case studies that also plants with lower productivity can withstand high compliance costs.

Download or read book Productivity and the California Global Warming Solutions Act written by Richard Ardito and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation examined the effect of California environmental regulation, AB32 on the Portland Cement Mining and Manufacturing industry which was directly targeted by the legislation. The researcher examined the effect of productivity on the Portland Cement industry operating within California by comparing changes specific labor and fuel use productivity measures to changes in the same measures for organizations operating outside of California. These differences were examined using an independent sample t-test to determine if any changes were statistically significant. The results showed statistically significant increases in productivity for direct labor, total employee labor, and combustible fuel use when analyzed to the p = .05 level of significance. The results of this dissertation suggest that Porter’s hypothesis that environmental regulations can increase operational efficiency for organizations could be true. While the results do seem promising for those who advocate for stricter environmental regulation, the limitations of the study, specifically the infancy of the data set, and the lack of specific financial measures should also be considered. Regardless of the limitations, the results of this research project are useful to business leaders, accountants, and legislatures who are dealing with possible incoming regulations or trying to write those regulations.

Download or read book The Impact of Business Environment and Economic Geography on Plant level Productivity written by Somik V. Lall and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The authors' analysis of manufacturing plants sampled from India's major industrial centers shows large productivity gaps across cities. The gaps partly reflect differences in agglomeration economies and in market access. However, they are also explained to a greater extent by differences in the degree of labor regulation and in the severity of power shortages. This is an indication that governments can help narrow regional disparities in industrial growth by fostering the "right business environment" in locations where industry might otherwise be held back by powerful forces of economic geography. There is indeed a pattern in the data whereby geographically disadvantaged cities seem to compensate partially for their natural disadvantage by having a better business environment than more geographically advantaged locations. "--World Bank web site.

Download or read book Plant Vintage Technology and Environmental Regulation written by Wayne B. Gray and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the impact of environmental regulation differ by plant vintage and technology? We answer this question using annual Census Bureau information on 116 pulp and paper mills' vintage, technology, productivity, and pollution abatement operating costs for 1979-1990. We find a significant negative relationship between pollution abatement costs and productivity levels. This is due almost entirely to integrated mills (those incorporating a pulping process), where a one standard deviation increase in abatement costs is predicted to reduce productivity by 5.4 percent. Older plants appear to have lower productivity but are less sensitive to abatement costs, perhaps due to 'grandfathering' of regulations. Mills which undergo renovations are also less sensitive to abatement costs, although these vintage and renovation results are not generally significant. We find similar results using a log-linear version of a three input Cobb-Douglas production function in which we include our technology, vintage, and renovation variables. Sample calculations of the impact of pollution abatement on productivity show the importance of allowing for differences based on plant technology. In a model incorporating technology interactions we estimate that total pollution abatement costs reduce productivity levels by an average of 4.7 percent across all the plants. The comparable estimate without technology interactions is 3.3 percent, approximately 30% lower.

Download or read book Technology and Capital Formation written by Dale Weldeau Jorgenson and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 1989-01 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributions in this book bring a wealth of detailed empirical data and an unusually wide range of perspectives - from universities, government, and business - to bear on the exploration of this important interrelationship; they focus, in particular, on the role of capital in the production process.

Download or read book The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Productivity in U S Manufacturing written by Timothy E. N. Zinck and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Why is Pollution from U S Manufacturing Declining written by Joseph S. Shapiro and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1990 and 2008, emissions of the most common air pollutants from U.S. manufacturing fell by 60 percent, even as real U.S. manufacturing output grew substantially. This paper develops a quantitative model to explain how changes in trade, environmental regulation, productivity, and consumer preferences have contributed to these reductions in pollution emissions. We estimate the model's key parameters using administrative data on plant-level production and pollution decisions. We then combine these estimates with detailed historical data to provide a model-driven decomposition of the causes of the observed pollution changes. Finally, we compare the model-driven decomposition to a statistical decomposition. The model and data suggest three findings. First, the fall in pollution emissions is due to decreasing pollution per unit output within narrowly defined products, rather than to changes in the types of products produced or changes to the total quantity of manufacturing output. Second, the implicit pollution tax that rationalizes firm production and abatement behavior more than doubled between 1990 and 2008. Third, environmental regulation explains 75 percent or more of the observed reduction in pollution emissions from manufacturing.

Download or read book The Costs and Benefits of Environmental Regulation written by Imad A. Moosa and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: øThe authors present an extensive survey of the empirical evidence on the determinants of environmental performance as well as the effects of environmental regulation on the costs of production, plant location, firm-level productivity, stock prices and

Download or read book The Mexico U S Free Trade Agreement written by Peter M. Garber and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seven contributions in this book examine the potential impact of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico on the U.S. economy. They cover such key aspects as the general sources of comparative advantage between Mexico and the U.S., regional and local effects on production and employment, and the effect on production in particular industries. The authors start from the premise that the trade agreement will have a small impact on the overall U.S. gross national product because the U.S. economy is large compared to that of Mexico and because there is already much unrestricted trade between the two countries. Several chapters consider how some sources of comparative advantage that cut across industries differential environmental regulations and wage differentials - may affect the outcome. These are followed by chapters that assess the locational effects on U.S. production, either from the viewpoint of which metropolitan areas will gain employment or of the scale effects-transportation cost-tradeoff. Concluding chapters address the effect of the NAFTA on several individual U.S. sectors such as agriculture, automobiles, and financial services. Peter M. Garber is Professor of Economics at Brown University. Contents: Introduction, Peter M. Garber. Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement, Gene M. Grossman, Alan B. Krueger. Wage Effects of a U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, Edward E. Leamer. Some Favorable Impacts of a U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, J. Vernon Henderson. Mexico- U.S. Free Trade and the Location of Production, Paul Krugman, Gordon Hanson. Trade with Mexico and Water Use in California Agriculture, Robert C. Feenstra, Andrew K. Rose. The Automobile Industry and the Mexico-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, Steven Barry, Vittorio Grilli, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes. Opening the Financial Services Market in Mexico, Peter M. Garber, Steven R. Weisbrod.

Download or read book The Effects of Environmental Regulation on the Competitiveness of U S Manufacturing written by Michael Greenstone and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic costs of environmental regulations have been widely debated since the U.S. began to restrict pollution emissions more than four decades ago. Using detailed production data from nearly 1.2 million plant observations drawn from the 1972-1993 Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate the effects of air quality regulations on manufacturing plants' total factor productivity (TFP) levels. We find that among surviving polluting plants, stricter air quality regulations are associated with a roughly 2.6 percent decline in TFP. The regulations governing ozone have particularly large negative effects on productivity, though effects are also evident among particulates and sulfur dioxide emitters. Carbon monoxide regulations, on the other hand, appear to increase measured TFP, especially among refineries. The application of corrections for the confounding of price increases and output declines and sample selection on survival produce a 4.8 percent estimated decline in TFP for polluting plants in regulated areas. This corresponds to an annual economic cost from the regulation of manufacturing plants of roughly $21 billion, which is about 8.8 percent of manufacturing sector profits in this period. Keywords: clean air act, costs of regulation, air pollution. JEL Classification: D2, L6, L5, Q5.

Download or read book The Effects of Environmental Regulation on the Competitiveness of U S Manufacturing written by Michael Greenstone and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The economic costs of environmental regulations have been widely debated since the U.S. began to restrict pollution emissions more than four decades ago. Using detailed production data from nearly 1.2 million plant observations drawn from the 1972-1993 Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate the effects of air quality regulations on manufacturing plants' total factor productivity (TFP) levels. We find that among surviving polluting plants, stricter air quality regulations are associated with a roughly 2.6 percent decline in TFP. The regulations governing ozone have particularly large negative effects on productivity, though effects are also evident among particulates and sulfur dioxide emitters. Carbon monoxide regulations, on the other hand, appear to increase measured TFP, especially among refineries. The application of corrections for the confounding of price increases and output declines and sample selection on survival produce a 4.8 percent estimated decline in TFP for polluting plants in regulated areas. This corresponds to an annual economic cost from the regulation of manufacturing plants of roughly $21 billion, about 8.8 percent of manufacturing sector profits in this period.