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Title: Environmental Regulation and Labor Demand: the Northern Spotted Owl

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2010

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Abstract: Environmental regulation can impact local labor markets, potentially reducing in-comes and employment and inducing reallocation across sectors. The labor marketconsequences of environmental regulation are di$cult to isolate because regulationsfrequently apply to large areas, such as the entire United States, and researchers can-not directly observe the counterfactual, in the absence of regulation. I claim thatprotection of the northern spotted owl in the Paci c Northwest in the 1990s led to anexogenous decline in labor demand in that region. I use this policy change to iden-tify the local and regional impacts of endangered species regulation on employmentand incomes in the timber industry. I estimate the local labor market impact of owlprotection by comparing counties in the region with and without owl-protected ar-eas. Depending on the choice of control areas and the inclusion of additional controlfactors, northern spotted owl protection plausibly led to a small loss of incomes andemployment in the region.

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Authors: Ferris, Ann

Publisher: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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