Working Paper: NBER ID: w31365
Authors: Karen Clay; Joshua A. Lewis; Edson R. Severnini
Abstract: Historically coal has offered both benefits and costs to urban areas. Benefits include coal’s role in fueling industry and thus employment. The primary costs are air pollution and its impact on human health. This paper starts by using a Rosen-Roback style model to examine how differences in local coal availability affect equilibrium city employment. Drawing on the model, the paper surveys papers that examine the net effects of coal on the growth in city population and air pollution on health. The paper then turns to papers that explicitly consider the trade-offs between production benefits and pollution disamenities across space and over time. The paper ends with a discussion of opportunities for future work on coal and cities in historical settings.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: N52; N72; O13; Q53; Q56
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increased coal use (L94) | quality of city amenities (R53) |
| quality of city amenities (R53) | local labor supply (J20) |
| local access to coal (L71) | transportation costs (L91) |
| transportation costs (L91) | local labor demand (J23) |
| access to coal resources (Q35) | total factor productivity (D24) |
| total factor productivity (D24) | labor demand (J23) |
| coal access (L71) | city population growth (R23) |
| local coal availability (L71) | city employment (J68) |
| local coal availability (L71) | local labor demand (J23) |