A BEJEAP Topics article.

Abstract

Under communism, Eastern Europe's cities were significantly more polluted than their Western European counterparts. An unintended consequence of communism's decline is to improve urban environmental quality. This paper uses several new data sets to measure these gains. National level data are used to document the extent of convergence across nations in sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions. Based on a panel data set from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, ambient sulfur dioxide levels have fallen both because of composition and technique effects. The incidence of this local public good improvement is analyzed.

Submitted: November 5, 2002 · Accepted: December 10, 2002 · Published: April 14, 2003

Originally published in Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy.

Recommended Citation

Kahn, Matthew E. (2003) "New Evidence on Eastern Europe's Pollution Progress ," Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/topics/vol3/iss1/art4

Related Files

kahn.zip (51 kB)
zip file with data and brief documentation