Distributional Effects of Air Pollution from Electric Vehicle Adoption∗

We examine the distributional effects of changes in local air pollution from driving electric vehicles in the United States. We employ an econometric model to estimate power plant emissions and an integrated assessment model to value damages in air pollution from both electric and gasoline vehicles. Using the locations of currently registered electric vehicles, we find that people living in census block groups with median income greater than about $65,000 receive positive environmental benefits from these vehicles while those below this threshold receive negative environmental benefits. Asian and Hispanic residents receive positive environmental benefits, but White and Black residents receive negative environmental benefits. In multivariate analyses, environmental benefits are positively correlated with income and urban measures, conditional on racial composition. In addition, conditional on income and urbanization, separate regressions find environmental benefits to be positively related with Asian and Hispanic block-group population shares, negatively correlated with White share, and uncorrelated with Black share. Environmental benefits tend to be larger in states offering purchase subsidies. However, for these states, an increase in subsidy size is associated with a decrease in created environmental benefits. We would like to thank Meghan Busse and participants at the NBER conference on Energy Policy Tradeoffs between Economic Efficiency and Distributional Equity. We would also like to thank Stephen Gaughan for generating the GIS distance data used in this analysis. Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro and National Bureau of Economic Research. Mailing Address: Bryan School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics, Bryan 462, PO Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. Phone: 336334-4925. Fax: 336-334-5580. Email: [email protected] Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and National Bureau of Economic Research. Mailing Address: 100 Tuck Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755-3514. Phone: 603-646-2398. Fax: 603-646-0995. Email: [email protected] Department of Economics, Middlebury College and National Bureau of Economic Research. Mailing Address: Department of Economics, Middlebury College, Warner Hall 305E, Middlebury, VT 05753. Phone: 802-443-5918. Fax: 802-443-2080. Email: [email protected] Department of Economics and Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mailing Address: Department of Economics, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, CB 3305 University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Phone 919-966-2383. Fax: 919-966-4986. Email: [email protected].