A Change Point Analysis of the Impact of “Environmental Federalism” on Aggregate AIr Quality in the United States: 1940–98

During President Reagan's administration, environmental policy making was substantially shifted from the federal level to the state and local levels. We use techniques in Bai (1997a, 1997b) to determine change points in the trends of three important air pollution series. We find that the beneficial trends in the emission series began with federal legislation and were not due to the Reagan devolution. However, second‐round change point tests indicate that the beneficial trends in the emissions series that began with federal legislation continued unabated following the Reagan devolution. (JEL Q20 , C50 )