The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Health and Labor Supply

Adibnia, Elham

The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Health and Labor Supply

dc.contributor.advisor	Staubli Muehlenbachs, Stephan
dc.contributor.author	Adibnia, Elham
dc.contributor.committeemember	Lu, Mingshan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Muehlenbachs, Lucija
dc.contributor.committeemember	Gordon, Daniel Vernon
dc.contributor.committeemember	Gunes, Pinar Mine
dc.date	2021-11
dc.date.accessioned	2021-06-21T14:42:55Z
dc.date.available	2021-06-21T14:42:55Z
dc.date.issued	2021-06-09
dc.description.abstract	The title of this thesis is ``The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Health and Labor Supply: Evidence from Ontario's Coal Phase-out". It explores the effect of environmental regulations on a wide range of health, and economic outcomes. I use coal phase-out in Ontario, Canada, as a quasi-experimental setting in my study. The first chapter of my thesis is introduction. Then, I explore related works, and conduct a literature review on papers that have studied the effect of pollution on air quality, infant health, adult health, environmental justice, labor supply, income, and productivity. In the third chapter, I present the historical background, and discuss implementation of coal phase-out in Ontario, in detail. In the fourth chapter, I use data from pollution monitoring networks to estimate the impact of Ontario's coal phase-out on the local air quality. I apply a difference-in-differences strategy comparing air pollution concentrations within 20 miles of power plants relative to 20-40 miles before and after their shutdowns. I find that applying this policy decreases O3, and SO2 levels by 6, and 19 percent, respectively. However, the results do not show a statistically significant effect on PM2.5, NOx, NO2, and NO levels. In the fifth chapter, I study the effect of Ontario's coal phase-out on infant, and adult health outcomes such as, birth weight, low birth weight incidence, preterm birth, adult's respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases. I use Canadian Vital Statistics-Birth and Death Databases, and a difference-in-differences strategy. My findings show that coal-fired power plant closures do not significantly change infant, and adult health outcomes. The final chapter, investigates the effect of coal phase-out in Ontario on local migration, labor supply, and income. I use a large-scale panel dataset, Longitudinal Administrative Databank (LAD), and a difference-in-differences method to find the causal relationships. I find that closure of coal-fired power plants in Ontario does not have any significant effect on local migration, and labor supply, on the extensive margin. However, it is associated with a 2.6-3 percent increase in employment income, and a 0.7-0.8 percent increase in market income in the short-, and the long-run, respectively.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Adibnia, E. (2021). The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Health and Labor Supply (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/38935
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/113511
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Arts	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Economics	en_US
dc.title	The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Health and Labor Supply	en_US
dc.type	doctoral thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Economics	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US