Carbon Geography: The Political Economy of Congressional Support for Legislation Intended to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Production
11 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2013
Date Written: April 2013
Abstract
Over the last 5 years, the U.S. Congress has voted on several pieces of legislation intended to sharply reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Given that climate change is a world public bad, standard economic logic would predict that the United States would “free ride” and wait for other nations to reduce their emissions. Within the Congress, there are clear patterns to who votes in favor of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a political economy analysis of the determinants of “pro‐green” votes on such legislation. Conservatives consistently vote against such legislation. Controlling for a representative's ideology, representatives from richer districts and districts with a lower per‐capita carbon dioxide footprint are more likely to vote in favor of climate change mitigation legislation. Representatives from districts where industrial emissions represent a larger share of greenhouse gas emissions are more likely to vote no.
JEL Classification: Q54, Q58, R50
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Greenness of Cities: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development
By Edward L. Glaeser and Matthew E. Kahn
-
The Greenness of Cities: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development
By Edward L. Glaeser and Matthew E. Kahn
-
The Greenness of China: Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development
By Siqi Zheng, Rui Wang, ...
-
Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment (Chapter One)
-
Semiparametric Estimation of Land Price Gradients Using Large Data Sets
-
Housing Externalities: Evidence from Spatially Concentrated Urban Revitalization Programs
-
"Green Stimulus,"Economic Recovery, and Long-Term Sustainable Development
By Jon Strand and Michael Toman
-
Overcoming the Social and Psychological Barriers to Green Building
By Andrew John Hoffman and Rebecca Henn
-
Economic Returns to Energy-Efficient Investments in the Housing Market: Evidence from Singapore
By Yongheng Deng, Zhiliang Li, ...
-
The Effect of Gasoline Prices on Household Location
By Raven Molloy and Hui Shan