Open AccessEVALUATING THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ON THE TREND BEHAVIOR OF US EMISSIONS OF NITROGEN OXIDES AND VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
Author(s) -
SIDNEVA NINA,
ZIVOT ERIC
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
natural resource modeling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.28
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1939-7445
pISSN - 0890-8575
DOI - 10.1111/nrm.12036
Subject(s) - environmental science , clean air act , environmental policy , air pollution , pollutant , nitrogen oxides , air pollutants , volatile organic compound , emissions trading , natural resource economics , greenhouse gas , economics , waste management , chemistry , environmental resource management , engineering , organic chemistry , ecology , biology
The nature of this paper is a practical application of a proper time‐series methodology to evaluate policy impacts when there is uncertainty about the data being difference‐stationary (DS) or trend‐stationary (TS). We use this methodology to examine the trend behavior of two air pollutants, nitrogen oxides (NO X ) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). In particular, we concentrate on answering two questions. First, were there breaks in the trends of NO X and VOC emissions around the same time environmental policies such as the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) of 1970 were passed? And second, accounting for possible breaks are the US emissions of NO X and VOC TS or DS? Our empirical results show a clear evidence of a trend shift in NO X and VOC emissions at the time the CAAA of 1970 were passed, implying that this policy has been effective in reducing air pollution emissions, as well as additional breaks that correspond to other events and environmental policies before and after 1970. The unit root tests indicate that NO X are DS irrespective of the number of breaks in the trend whereas results for VOC emissions depend on the number of breaks assumed.