Enforcement and air pollution: an environmental justice case study

Germani, Anna Rita and Morone, Piergiuseppe and Testa, Giuseppina (2011): Enforcement and air pollution: an environmental justice case study.

Abstract

This paper provides an environmental justice empirical analysis on the relationship between income, demographic characteristics and concentrations of air industrial pollutants within the Italian provinces. Two general conclusions can be drawn from the empirical results. First, the estimates obtained are consistent with an inverse U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve: air pollution releases increase with income up to a turning point, where the relation reverts. Second, there is evidence that air releases tend to be higher in provinces with high concentration of females as households’ head and with high concentration of children. Since our findings do not point to environmental discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, this suggests that environmental justice issues in Italy are not likely to manifest themselves along racial and ethnic terms but instead in terms of social categories and gender composition. We also find that judicial inefficiency (a measure of the inefficiency of law enforcement) is associated with higher levels of pollution. In terms of policy implications, this result suggests the need to strengthen, all through the territory, the local enforcement of environmental laws in order to possibly reduce the negative effects on ambient air pollution.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Environmental justice, social inequalities, air pollution emissions
• Subjects: K - Law and Economics > K3 - Other Substantive Areas of Law > K32 - Environmental, Health, and Safety Law; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q50 - General

References

REFERENCES

Anderton D.L., A. B. Anderson, J.M. Oakes, M.R. Fraser (1994). Environmental equity: the demographics of dumping, Demography 31:229–248.

Aradhyula S., M. Burns, D.C. Cory (2006). On notions of fairness in environmental justice, Cardon Research Papers in Agricultural and Resource Economics, n. 4, University of Arizona.

Arora S. and T.N. Cason (1999). Do Community Characteristics Influence Environmental Outcomes? Evidence from the Toxics Release Inventory, Southern Economic Journal, 65: 691-716.

Bagnasco A. (1977). Tre Italie. La problematica territoriale dello sviluppo italiano, Bologna, Il Mulino.

Becker G.S. (1968). Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, Journal of Political Economy, 76:169-217.

Been V. (1994). Locally Undesirable Land Uses in Minority Neighborhoods: Disproportionate Siting or Market Dynamics?, The Yale Law Journal 103(6):1383-1422.

Been V. and F. Gupta (1997). Coming to the nuisance or going to the barrios: a longitudinal analysis of environmental justice claims, Ecology Law Quarterly 24(1):1–55.

Boer J. T., M. Pastor, J.L. Sadd, and L.D. Snyder (1997). Is There Environmental Racism? The Demographics of Hazardous Waste in Los Angeles County, Social Science Quarterly, 78:793-810.

Brainard J., A. Jones, I. Bateman, A. Lovett, P. Fallon (2002). Modelling environmental equity: access to air quality in Birmingham, England, Environment and Planning A; 34:695–716.

Brock W.A. and M.S. Taylor (2005). Economic growth and the environment: A review of theory and empirics, in: P. Aghion and S. Durlauf, Editors, Handbook of Economic Growth Vol. 1B, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 1749–1821.

Brooks N. and R. Sethi (1997). The Distribution of Pollution: Community Characteristics and Exposure to Air Toxics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 32:233:250.

Brown P. (1995). Race, class, and environmental health: a review and systematization of the literature, Environmental Research, 69:15-30.

Bullard R.D., P. Mohai, R. Saha, B. Wright (2010). Toxic wastes and race at twenty: why race sill matters after all of these years, Environmental Law, 38:371.

Bullard R. D. and B.H. Wright (1989). Toxic waste and the African-American community, Urban League Review,13:67–75.

Bullard R.D. and B.H. Wright (1987). Environmentalism and the politics of equity: emergent trends in the black community, Mid-American Review of Sociology, 12:21–38.

Bullard R.D. (1983). Solid waste sites and the black Houston community, Sociological Inquiry, 53:273–288.

Chaix B., S. Gustafsson, M. Jerrett, H. Kristersson, T. Lithman, A. Boalt, J. Merlo (2006). Children’s exposure to nitrogen dioxide in Sweden: investigating environmental injustice in an egalitarian country, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health; 60:234–41.

Cole M.A., A.J. Rayner, and J.M. Bates (1997). The environmental Kuznets curve: an empirical analysis, Environment and Development Economics, 2:401-416, Cambridge University Press.

Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (2007). Long-term Exposure to Air Pollution: Effect on Mortality, http://www.advisorybodies.doh.gov.uk/comeap/statementsreports/longtermeffectsmort2007.pdf.

Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of Christ (1987). Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites, United Church of Christ, New York.

Cory D.C. and T. Rahman (2009). Environmental justice and enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act: the Arizona arsenic experience, Ecological Economics, 68:1825-1837.

Daniels G. and S. Friedman (1999). Spatial inequality and the distribution of industrial toxic releases: evidence from the 1990 TRI, Social Science Quarterly, 80(2):244-262.

de Bruyn S.M., J. van den Bergh, J.B. Opschoor (1998). Economic growth and emissions: reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental Kuznets curve, Ecological Economics, vol.25, pp.161-175.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (2007). The air quality strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, volume I, in partnership with the Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly Government and Department of the Environment Northern Ireland.

Evans G.W. and E. Kantrowitz (2002). Socioeconomic status and health: the potential role of environmental risk exposure, Annual Review of Public Health, 23:303–331.

Filer J.E., L.W. Kenny, and R.B. Morton (1993). Redistribution, income and voting, American Journal of Political Science, 37:63-87.

Forastiere F., M. Stafoggia, C. Tasco, S. Picciotto, N. Agabiti, G. Cesaroni, C.A. Perucci (2007). Socioeconomic status, particulate air pollution, and daily mortality: differential exposure or differential susceptibility, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 50:208–216.

Goldman B.A. (1991). The Truth about Where You Live: An Atlas for Action on Toxins and Mortality, Random House, New York.

Gómez R. and P. Hernández de Cos (2008). The importance of being mature: the effect of demographic maturation on global per-capita GDP, Journal of Population Economics, 21(3):589-608.

Gray W. and R. Shadbegian (2004). Optimal pollution abatement - whose benefits matter, and how much?, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 47.

Greenberg M.R. (1993). Proving Environmental Inequity in Siting Locally Unwanted Land Uses, Risk - Issues in Health and Safety, 4:235-252.

Greene W.H. (2003). Econometric Analysis (5th Edition), University Prentice Hall, New York.

Grossmann G.M. and A.B. Krueger (1995). Economic growth and the environment, Quartely Journal of Economics 110:353–377.

Grossmann G.M. and A.B. Krueger (1993). Environmental impacts of a North American free trade agreement, in: P. Garber, Editor, The Mexico-US Free Trade Agreement, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 13–56.

Grossmann G.M. and A.B. Krueger (1991). Environmental impacts of a North American free trade agreement, NBER Working paper No. 3914.

Guiso L., P. Sapienza, and L. Zingales (2004). The Role of Social Capital in Financial Development, American Economic Review, 94(3).

Hamilton J.T. (1995). Testing for environmental racism: prejudice, profits, and political power? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 14 (1): 107–132.

Hamilton J.T. (1993). Politics and social costs: estimating the impact of collective action on hazardous waste facilities, Rand Journal of Economics, 24:101–125.

Havard S., S. Deguen, D. Zmirou-Navier, C. Schillinger, D. Bard (2009). Traffic-related air pollution and socioeconomic status: a spatial autocorrelation study to assess environmental equity on a small-area scale, Epidemiology, 20:223–30.

Havard S., S. Deguen, J. Bodin, K. Louis, O. Laurent, D. Bard (2008). A small-area index of socioeconomic deprivation to capture health inequalities in France, Social Science and Medicine, 67:2007–16.

Quality of life index, Annual Report, ed. Il Sole 24 Ore.

Institute Guglielmo Tagliacarne – Union of Italian Chambers of Commerce, Geo Web Starter Database, http://www.geowebstarter.tagliacarne.it

ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research). Provincial Inventory on Air Emissions (various years) http://www.sinanet.isprambiente.it.

ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics) (2001). Population and housing census, http://www.istat.it/censimenti.

Kruize H., P.P. Driessen, P. Glasbergen, and K.N. van Egmond (2007). Environmental equity and the role of public policy: experiences in the Rijnmond region, Environmental Management, 40:578–95.

Kuznets S. (1955). Economic Growth and Income Inequality, American Economic Review, 65:1-28.

Lopez R. (1994). The environment as a factor of production: The effects of economic growth and trade liberalization, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 27:163–184.

Lun G., D. Holzer, G. Tappeiner and U. Tappeiner (2006). The stability of rankings derived from composite indicators: analysis of the “Il Sole 24 Ore” quality of life report, Social Indicators Research, 77:307-331.

Mazzanti M., A. Montini, F. Nicolli (2009). The dynamics of landfill diversion: economic drivers, policy factors and spatial issues, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 54(1):53-61.

McLeod H., I. Langford, A. Jones, J. Stedmand, R. Day, I. Lorenzoni, I. Bateman (2000). The relationship between socioeconomic indicators and air pollution in England and Wales: implications for environmental justice, Regional Environmental Change, 1:18–85.

Meers R. (2000). A Test of the Environmental Kuznets Curve For Local and Global Pollutants, Honors Projects, Paper 76, http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/econ_honproj/76.

Mincer J. (1974). Schooling, Experience and Earnings, New York: Columbia University Press.

Mincer J. (1958). Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution, Journal of Political Economy, 66(4):281-302.

Mohai P. and B. Bryant (1992). Environmental racism: reviewing the evidence, in: Bryant, Bunyan, Mohai, Paul (Eds.), Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 163–176.

Morello-Frosch R., M. Pastor and J. Sadd (2004). Waiting to inhale: the demographics of toxic air release facilities in 21st-century California, Social Science Quarterly, 85(2):240-440.

Naess O., F.N. Piro, P. Nafstad, G.D. Smith, A.H. Leyland (2007). Air pollution, social deprivation, and mortality: a multilevel cohort study, Epidemiology;18:686–94.

Namdeo A. and C. Stringer (2008). Investigating the relationship between air pollution, health and social deprivation in Leeds, UK, Environment International, 34:585–91.

Nieves L.A., A.L. Nieves (1992). Regional differences in the potential exposure of U.S. minority populations to hazardous facilities, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Regional Science Association in Chicago, November.

Oakes J.M., D.L. Anderton, A.B. Anderson (1996). A longitudinal analysis of environmental equity in communities with hazardous waste facilities, Social Science Research, 25:125–148.

Olson M. (1965). The logic of collective action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pastor M., J. Sadd, and J. Hipp (2001). Which came first? Toxic facilities, minority move-in, and environmental justice, Journal of Urban Affairs, 23:1-21.

Pollock P.H. and M.E. Vittas (1995). Who bears the burdens of environmental pollution? Race, ethnicity, and environmental equity in Florida, Social Science Quarterly, 76(2):294-310.

Ringquist E. (1997). Equity and the distribution of environmental risk: The case of TRI facilities, Social Science Quarterly 78(4):811-829.

Ringquist E. and D.H. Clark (1999). Local Risks, States’ Rights, and Federal Mandates: Remedying Environmental Inequities in the U.S. Federal System, Publius, 29(2):73-93.

Rotko T., K. Koistinen, O. Hanninen, M. Jantunen (2000). Sociodemographic descriptors of personal exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) in EXPOLIS Helsinki, Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 10:385.

Rotko T., A. Kousa, S. Alm, M. Jantunen (2001). Exposures to nitrogen dioxide in EXPOLIS-Helsinki: microenvironment, behavioral and sociodemographic factors, Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 11:216–23.

Sadd J.L., M. Pastor, J.T. Boer, and L.D. Snyder (1999). “Every Breath You Take…:” The Demographics of Toxic Air Releases in Southern California, Economic Development Quarterly 13(2):107-123.

Schikowski T., D. Sugiri, V. Reimann, B. Pesch, U. Ranft, U. Krämer (2008). Contribution of smoking and air pollution exposure in urban areas to social differences in respiratory health, BioMed Central Public Health, 8:179.

Selden T.M. and D. Song (1994). Environmental quality and development: is there a Kuznets curve for air pollution emissions?, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 27:147-162.

Stern D.I. and M.S. Common (2001). Is there an Environmental Kuznets Curve for sulphur?, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 41:162-178.

Stroh E., A. Oudin, S. Gustafsson, P. Pilesjö, L. Harrie, U. Strömberg, K. Jakobsson (2005). Are associations between socioeconomic characteristics and exposure to air pollution a question of study area size? An example from Scania, Sweden, International Journal of Health and Geography, 4:30.

Vitali O. and A. Merlini (1999). La qualità della vita: metodi e verifiche, Rivista italiana di economia, demografia e statistica, 53:5-93.

Wheeler B.W. and Y. Ben-Shlomo (2005). Environmental equity, air quality, socioeconomic status, and respiratory health: a linkage analysis of routine data from the Health Survey for England, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 59:948–54.

World Health Organization (2005). Air quality guidelines. Global update 2005. Report on a Working Group meeting, Bonn-Germany, http://www.euro.who.int/Document/E87950.pdf.