Apr 20th, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Title
Impact of Air Quality Regulations on Entrepreneurial Activity
Faculty Mentor
Information
The objective of this research is to examine the impact of Federal National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) non-attainment status on the entrepreneurial activity in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Most of the existing research on the relationship between non-attainment and the financial robustness of areas focuses on the big polluters (e.g., plastics, organic chemicals, steel smelting and refining, etc.), and examines how many of the big polluters failed or relocated, measured by the change in the number of plants/firms when an area moved from attainment to non-attainment. Our paper will use a 317 MSA panel data set over the 1989-2003 timeframe, to address the question more comprehensively by looking at all industries, not just a targeted few polluters. Controlling for other time-variant confounding effects, such as population growth, per-capita income, tax rate changes, minimum wage rates, energy costs, regional inflation measures, and spatial phenomena (such as, natural disasters) we isolate the effect of non-attainment status on large polluters as well as the linkage industries. We show that if an area is designated non-attainment status in a particular year, it leads to a decline in the total number of business starts in the MSA in the following year. We also determine whether the impact of non-attainment varies across businesses of different sizes.