Economic Inequality and Environmental Quality: Evidence of Pollution Shifting in Russia

This paper utilizes the Russian Statistical Agency\u27s data on air pollution in Russia to analyze the impact of economic inequalities among Russia\u27s regions on environmental degradation. Controlling for the absolute level of income, we find that regions with lower incomes relative to those of neighboring regions have more uncontrolled air pollution. Differences in uncontrolled pollution do not appear to be attributable to differences in spending on pollution control, suggesting that facility siting provides the dominant explanation. In addition, we find that greater within-region inequalities in income and in the provision of public goods are associated with greater uncontrolled air pollution