The Chilling Effects of Recessions: Battling Climate Change During Bad Times
Matt Kotchen and I have written a new NBER Working Paper that we hope will interest you.
Environmental Concern and the Business Cycle: The Chilling Effect of Recession
Matthew E. Kahn, Matthew J. Kotchen
NBER Working Paper No. 16241
Issued in July 2010
This paper uses three different sources of data to investigate the association between the business cycle—measured with unemployment rates—and environmental concern. Building on recent research that finds internet search terms to be useful predictors of health epidemics and economic activity, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate decreases Google searches for “global warming” and increases searches for “unemployment,” and that the effect differs according to a state’s political ideology. From national surveys, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a decrease in the probability that residents think global warming is happening and reduced support for the U.S to target policies intended to mitigate global warming. Finally, in California, we find that an increase in a county’s unemployment rate is associated with a significant decrease in county residents choosing the environment as the most important policy issue. Beyond providing the first empirical estimates of macroeconomic effects on environmental concern, we discuss the results in terms of the potential impact on environmental policy and understanding the full cost of recessions.
UPDATE:
Bloggers are funny people. Look at how this new paper is attacked here . This intellectual has not bothered to read our paper but he has an opinion. I would like to respond. His main point appears to be that he already knew our main point so there is no contribution made by our empirical work. But, the "conventional wisdom" is often wrong. Ask Galileo and this has been repeated for centuries. Ask Darwin. Now, I am neither Galileo or Darwin but it is the scientist's job to use proper methods to double check the conventional wisdom and that is a contribution. We need to know why President Obama devoted little political capital to enacting climate change legislation and our work suggests that the recession as a "smoking gun" is correct. Does that make our paper worthless? The NBER did not pay us a dime for this research but we have released it as a NBER working paper. So, the intellectual payoff of the Kahn and Kotchen (2010) paper is to offer a convincing test of the claim that "recessions reduce interest in battling climate change". Our evidence says this statement is true and this is valuable knowledge for those who seek to enact new legislation and for environmentalists who often claim that economic growth is an enemy of the environment.
Environmental Concern and the Business Cycle: The Chilling Effect of Recession
Matthew E. Kahn, Matthew J. Kotchen
NBER Working Paper No. 16241
Issued in July 2010
This paper uses three different sources of data to investigate the association between the business cycle—measured with unemployment rates—and environmental concern. Building on recent research that finds internet search terms to be useful predictors of health epidemics and economic activity, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate decreases Google searches for “global warming” and increases searches for “unemployment,” and that the effect differs according to a state’s political ideology. From national surveys, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a decrease in the probability that residents think global warming is happening and reduced support for the U.S to target policies intended to mitigate global warming. Finally, in California, we find that an increase in a county’s unemployment rate is associated with a significant decrease in county residents choosing the environment as the most important policy issue. Beyond providing the first empirical estimates of macroeconomic effects on environmental concern, we discuss the results in terms of the potential impact on environmental policy and understanding the full cost of recessions.
UPDATE:
Bloggers are funny people. Look at how this new paper is attacked here . This intellectual has not bothered to read our paper but he has an opinion. I would like to respond. His main point appears to be that he already knew our main point so there is no contribution made by our empirical work. But, the "conventional wisdom" is often wrong. Ask Galileo and this has been repeated for centuries. Ask Darwin. Now, I am neither Galileo or Darwin but it is the scientist's job to use proper methods to double check the conventional wisdom and that is a contribution. We need to know why President Obama devoted little political capital to enacting climate change legislation and our work suggests that the recession as a "smoking gun" is correct. Does that make our paper worthless? The NBER did not pay us a dime for this research but we have released it as a NBER working paper. So, the intellectual payoff of the Kahn and Kotchen (2010) paper is to offer a convincing test of the claim that "recessions reduce interest in battling climate change". Our evidence says this statement is true and this is valuable knowledge for those who seek to enact new legislation and for environmentalists who often claim that economic growth is an enemy of the environment.
posted by Matthew E. Kahn at 11:23 AM
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