Applied Micro Seminar 
Time: 12:15 pm – 13:30 pm
Date: 09th of January
Room : 3001

Lutz Sager (Georgetown University )  “Clean Identification? The Effects of the Clean Air Act on Air Pollution, Exposure Disparities and House Prices”

Abstract : We assess the US Clean Air Act standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Using high-resolution data, we find that the 2005 regulation reduced PM2.5 levels by 0.4ìg/m3 over five years, with larger effects in more polluted areas. Standard difference-in-differences overstates these effects by a factor of three because time trends differ by baseline pollution, a bias we overcome with three alternative approaches. We show that the regulation contributed to narrowing Urban- Rural and Black-White PM2.5 exposure disparities, but less than difference-in-differences suggest. Pollution damages capitalized into house prices, on the other hand, appear larger than previously thought when leveraging regulatory variation.

Organizer : Geoffrey Barrows