Direct and Indirect Industrial Pollution Generation: A Field of Influence Approach

Abstract

Economic change within regional economies can create significant impacts on a variety of indicators; while attention has been focused on the role that structural change has played in transforming many Midwestern metropolitan and state economies over the last two decades, far too much attention has been directed to one indicator, employment, with the result that some important dimensions of change have been ignored. In the case of the Chicago region, while employment declined by almost 500,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1970 and the early 1990s, this dramatic change was not accompanied by a concomitant decrease in output levels (see Israilevich and Mahidhara, 1990, 1991). In fact, subsequent analysis has revealed that the pattern of transformation is even more complicated, with manufacturing employment declining, manufacturing output increasing slightly and the levels of intermediate transactions declining (see Hewings et al. 1998). In this context, it is important that environmental regulations be tailored to address past and projected future structural changes so as to avoid reducing activity levels beyond those necessary to meet air quality targets.