![]() ![]() I contribute to the literature in several ways.įirst, I quantify the impact of CBG on three criteria pollutants: NO 2, CO, and SO 2. EPA has been moving from less restrictive federal gasoline regulations to regulations that bring the nation closer to stringent California standards ( CARB, 2008 b). ![]() Identifying the pollution reduction and associated health benefits from CBG is especially important given that the U.S. This paper asks whether or not CBG improved health outcomes, measured by childhood asthma, by reducing pollution. ![]() However, the health impacts of gasoline content regulations have not yet been quantified. 6 Auffhammer and Kellogg (2011) find that only the precisely targeted, inflexible CBG regulations improved air quality. When refiners are granted flexibility in deciding which specific compounds to remove from gasoline, they chose to remove the cheapest, rather than the most harmful pollutants. Instead, research on gasoline content regulations has focused on the production response of refineries, the impact on price and price volatility, and the improvements in air quality ( Auffhammer and Kellogg, 2011 Brown et al., 2008 Muehlegger, 2002). However, existing research has yet to document whether these regulations can be successful in protecting health. One important way that policy makers can try to reduce the negative impact of automobile congestion on health is through gasoline content regulations. In addition, Anderson (2015) exploits variation in wind direction to estimate the impact of highway pollution on adult mortality. Knittel, Miller and Sanders (2015) go further in trying to understand the role that automobile congestion plays in impacting pollution and infant mortality. For example, Neidell (2004) and Currie and Neidell (2005) exploit seasonal variations in pollution within zip codes to identify pollution’s impact on child asthma hospitalizations and infant mortality. Previous literature establishing the link between air pollution and health has exploited natural experiments to avoid the inherent endogeneity problems of cross-sectional comparisons ( Chay and Greenstone, 2003 a, b Lleras-Muney, 2010 Currie and Walker, 2011 Neidell, 2004 Currie and Neidell, 2005 Schlenker and Walker, 2015). This identification strategy requires only that the differences between neighborhoods near and far from highways do not shift discontinuously at the time of the CBG regulation. 4 Using a differences-in-differences framework I examine the change in both pollution and asthma admissions in areas near and far from highways, before and after the introduction of CBG. 3 A cross-sectional comparison of people living near and far from highways would be biased by differences in observable and unobservable characteristics, such as income, education and preference for clean air, which are correlated both with choice of residence and susceptibility to asthma. In this paper, I exploit spatial variation in children’s exposure to highways based on residential location to estimate the effect of gasoline regulation on both pollution and child health. CBG is likely to have the largest impact on people living near highways, given the documented relationship between distance from highways and level of traffic-related air pollution ( Gilbert et al., 2003). The precisely targeted, inflexible regulations of California’s CBG required the removal of particularly harmful compounds from gasoline. Although this paper focuses childhood asthma, cleaner-burning gasoline may improve health along many dimensions, such as reductions in heart disease, lung disease, and cancer. In 1996, California Air Resources Board (CARB) required the introduction of cleaner-burning gasoline (CBG) throughout the state in order to reduce vehicle emissions of pollutants that cause or contribute to various health problems. Several states, including California, have adopted more stringent gasoline programs than those imposed by the federal government. 2 Given these high costs, it is important to identify whether or not gasoline content regulation significantly decreases pollution, improves health, and reduces health expenditures. Some of these costs are passed to consumers and can increase the price and price volatility of gasoline ( Brown et al., 2008 Muehlegger, 2002). The compliance cost to refineries is over $1 billion per year in California. However, gasoline content regulations have significant economic costs. 1 In an effort to curb pollution from motor vehicle exhaust and improve health outcomes, state and federal governments have enacted gasoline content regulations. Motor vehicle exhaust has been identified as an important asthma trigger, and evidence from epidemiological research shows a strong correlation between traffic pollution and health outcomes for children and infants. Asthma affects 1 in 10 children and costs the U.S. ![]()
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