Impact of Racial Power Inequality on Environmental Quality — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

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The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
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Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Impact of Racial Power Inequality on Environmental Quality

Name: Georgia Fox
Major: Economics
Hometown: Waukesha
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Abstract

The consequences of social, political, and economic inequality are innumerable, and amongst them may be worse environmental degradation. Boyce (1994) proposes the theory that greater imbalances in power result in more environmental degradation due to powerful people having the liberty to impose costs on powerless people. In American society, wealth and race correlate closely with power. The purpose of the present study is to determine if racial power inequality is a cause of environmental degradation. In order to test this relationship, I use a fixed effects model to regress racial power inequality (as measured by segregation) on environmental quality (as measured by the Air Quality Index)) using data from the years 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Multiple variables are included to control for other factors known to affect willingness and ability to pay for environmental amenities. The scale of the analysis is at the CBSA level. The results of my analysis show that for metropolitan areas, segregation does not have a significant impact on environmental quality.

Poster file