Leakage from Environmental Regulation: Evidence from Used Vehicle Trade and Smog Check

这项研究研究了环境监管在多大程度上将经济活动和相关污染从受监管的地区转移到不受监管的地区，并导致有经济价值的资产被废弃。该项目还通过汇编并向公众提供一个异常庞大的数据集，为研究创造了一个公共产品，该数据集记录了来自许多州的个别车辆的烟雾检查测试，这些州实行“烟雾检查”检查和维护计划，并有可用的记录。由于监管只覆盖部分地区而不覆盖其他地区，污染可能从受监管地区“泄漏”到不受监管地区，这是人们普遍哀叹的后果。泄漏表明，监管只是转移污染，而不是减少整个经济的排放。本研究分析了一个重要但研究不足的环境——客运中的泄漏。乘用车占美国污染排放总量的很大一部分，但事实证明，对客运排放进行高效和有效的监管是困难的。该分析研究了排放检查和维护计划——《清洁空气法》交通监管的核心——如何影响从受监管的县到不受监管的县的污染车辆交易以及车辆报废决定。该分析还量化了由雾霾检查规定引起的汽车交易将排放转移到污染对环境损害相对较小的地区的程度。该研究设计利用了1990年《清洁空气法修正案》规定的车辆检查严格程度的变化。该项目的数据使研究人员能够在不同的时间点追踪美国境内所有二手车的交易地点。研究结果将使学者和政策制定者了解排放泄漏在移动源空气污染物监管中的重要性，以及在地方、州或联邦层面管理监管的潜在后果。

This research studies the extent to which environmental regulation moves economic activity and associated pollution from regulated to unregulated regions and leads to scrap of economically valuable assets. The project also creates a public good for research by compiling and making publicly available an unusually large dataset recording smog check tests of individual vehicles from many of the states which operate "smog check" inspection and maintenance programs and which have available records.The potential existence of "leakage" of pollution from regulated to unregulated areas is a widely-bemoaned consequence of having regulation cover some regions and not others. Leakage suggests that regulation is merely relocating pollution rather than reducing economy-wide emissions. This research analyzes leakage in an important and understudied setting, passenger transportation. Passenger vehicles contribute a substantial share of total U.S. pollution emissions but efficient and effective regulation of emissions from passenger transportation has proven difficult. The analysis studies how emissions inspection and maintenance programs - the centerpiece of the Clean Air Act's regulation for transportation - affect both the trade of dirty vehicles from regulated to unregulated counties and vehicle scrap decisions. The analysis also quantifies the extent to which vehicle trade caused by smog check regulations moves emissions to regions where pollution has relatively lower environmental damages. The research design exploits variation in vehicle inspection stringency mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The project data allow the researchers to track where all used vehicles are traded within the entire United States at different points in time. The results will inform scholars and policymakers about the importance of emissions leakage in the regulation of mobile source air pollutants and the potential consequences of administering regulation at local versus state or federal levels.