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 |