Abstract
This study investigates whether US senators are more likely to vote in favor of environmentally friendly legislation following damages caused by climate-related natural disasters. We combine senatorial scores of roll call votes on environmental legislation with modeled state-level human and economic natural disaster losses over a 44-year period. Our results show that support for environmental legislation increases in response to unusual human losses but does not respond to unusual economic losses. We also find that the documented response to natural disasters is two years and relatively short-lived. Geography, constituent partisanship, local economic conditions, and senatorial experience affect themagnitude and precision of the treatment effect.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 753-786 |
| Number of pages | 34 |
| Journal | Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 21 Apr 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press for The Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
Keywords
- US
- natural disasters
- environmental legislation
- politicians
- voting
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics
- Nature and Landscape Conservation
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law