The Blame Game: Has California's Green Push Caused A Deeper Recession Here?
In the 1970s, macro productivity indicators were declining at the same time that EPA regulation was increasing. Some claimed that there was a causal link between these facts. It was claimed that increased regulation lowered business productivity through increasing the labor and capital inputs required to comply with the new regulations.
In hindsight, nobody believes this claim is a big deal. In fact, the Porter Hypothesis has posited that regulation has negative costs as it pushes firms to rethink their business strategies (an inertia claim). I don't believe this story either.
Today, we find some of the leading candidates seeking Arnold S's job making this claim again. See this. Is Ms. Whitman right?
Local land use regulation in California (which is more stringent in liberal communities like Berkeley) helps to drive up real estate prices. This may push some jobs out of the state; especially commercial and industrial activity that is land intensive.
I have also wondered about union power in California. Listening to today's headlines about the LADWP, I see the power of the local unions. Dozens of economic studies have documented the job growth patterns across states and the "coincidence" that there is much greater job growth in Right to Work States (see Thomas Holmes 1998).
Holmes, Thomas, 1998. "The Effect of State Policies on the Location of Manufacturing: Evidence from State Borders," Journal of Political Economy, vol. 106(4), pages 667-705, August.
So, I agree with Ms. Whitman that an unintended consequence of liberal politics leading to land use regulation and labor regulation is to make California's economy less competitive. Why? They drive up the cost of land and labor and this raises firm's cost of doing business in the state and the cost minimizing firm seeks out cheaper (i.e Nevada) places for doing business.
But, is she right about environmental regulation's detrimental effects on the state economy? I don't think so. As I have argued before, California will continue to attract the next Googles if it is perceived to be cutting edge. Environmental regulation does not have to be extremely costly if the economists are brought in to design it. If we are invited in (and the Air Resources Board now has excellent economists working with them), then I am highly confident that environmental regulation can both achieve its direct goal of improving environmental outcomes in the state and helping to lead a push to job creation in new vibrant sectors.
So, California is liberal and liberal states have more land use regulation, labor regulation and environmental regulation. To quote Professor Meatloaf, "two of out three ain't bad". But on the last count, she is wrong. AB32 is not causing this recession.
In hindsight, nobody believes this claim is a big deal. In fact, the Porter Hypothesis has posited that regulation has negative costs as it pushes firms to rethink their business strategies (an inertia claim). I don't believe this story either.
Today, we find some of the leading candidates seeking Arnold S's job making this claim again. See this. Is Ms. Whitman right?
Local land use regulation in California (which is more stringent in liberal communities like Berkeley) helps to drive up real estate prices. This may push some jobs out of the state; especially commercial and industrial activity that is land intensive.
I have also wondered about union power in California. Listening to today's headlines about the LADWP, I see the power of the local unions. Dozens of economic studies have documented the job growth patterns across states and the "coincidence" that there is much greater job growth in Right to Work States (see Thomas Holmes 1998).
Holmes, Thomas, 1998. "The Effect of State Policies on the Location of Manufacturing: Evidence from State Borders," Journal of Political Economy, vol. 106(4), pages 667-705, August.
So, I agree with Ms. Whitman that an unintended consequence of liberal politics leading to land use regulation and labor regulation is to make California's economy less competitive. Why? They drive up the cost of land and labor and this raises firm's cost of doing business in the state and the cost minimizing firm seeks out cheaper (i.e Nevada) places for doing business.
But, is she right about environmental regulation's detrimental effects on the state economy? I don't think so. As I have argued before, California will continue to attract the next Googles if it is perceived to be cutting edge. Environmental regulation does not have to be extremely costly if the economists are brought in to design it. If we are invited in (and the Air Resources Board now has excellent economists working with them), then I am highly confident that environmental regulation can both achieve its direct goal of improving environmental outcomes in the state and helping to lead a push to job creation in new vibrant sectors.
So, California is liberal and liberal states have more land use regulation, labor regulation and environmental regulation. To quote Professor Meatloaf, "two of out three ain't bad". But on the last count, she is wrong. AB32 is not causing this recession.
posted by Matthew Kahn at 7:54 PM
3 Comments:
Matt,
Thanks for the good read.
Environmental regulation is frequently framed in a false dichotomy: you can have policies that protect the environment, or you can have efficient economic growth. This analysis, based on incomplete equilibrium models evaluated in a vacuum, ignores the complexity of real-world systems, behavioral economics, and basic human psychology.
There are reasons that Google, Yahoo, and Sun Microsystems are based in Silicon Valley, CA rather than Winnemucca, NV and they have little to do with the marginal cost of land and labor in NV and CA. There are factors, like quality of life, that allow companies in places like Mountain View to attract better talent, at a lower price, than companies in Winnemucca might be able to. These non-monetary factors can be difficult to quantify in a simple supply and demand models, so they're frequently ignored, but the paucity of cutting-edge companies in environmentally degraded or otherwise unaesthetic areas should underscore their importance.
Studies that focus on the costs of intelligent environmental regulation also tend to be concerned with the short-run effects. These short-run effects are easier to model, easier to understand, and easier to politicize. This does not make the short-run models the best sources for informed policy-making.
A shallow evaluation of climate change regulation, for example, might focus on its short-term impact on energy prices, rather than examining what California will lose if our snowpack melts months and weeks earlier than it historically has. An early melt might seem like a trivial environmental concern, but the cost to the state, and to the taxpayer, will be enormous. Losing the ecosystem service of long-term water storage can only lead to rising water prices, less reliable and more costly energy supplies, and higher taxes to fund costly infrastructure to compensate for the loss of the natural water storage.
I am totally on board with your suggestion that "Environmental regulation does not have to be extremely costly", but I might take it a step further: in the long run, intelligent environmental regulation can be less costly than the alternatives, and can be the driver for sustainable economic growth.
David Maurier
Water Policy Analyst
Planning and Conservation League
http://www.pcl.org/
This is a non-issue that will crush Whitman. To whit:
"The decline in support for the global warming effort in California was largely partisan. Democratic support dropped only from 83% to 78%. Among Republicans, however, support dropped from 57% to 43%. It is "a much more partisan context now," Baldassare said."
How is that partisan? Half of the Republicans in the state still support AB 32, and this is labeled as partisan. Bad reporting, building the impression of a controversy where there is none.
Your theaory as it relates to Google etc. seems accurate, but it also seems to assume that "cutting edge" companies are the main economic drivers of the California economy.
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