Three essays on industrial pollution generation and structural change in a regional economy

Applying a regional econometric input-output model for the Chicago metropolitan region, the first part of the thesis analyzes direct and indirect patterns of industrial air pollution. Furthermore, an industry emissions model is developed and tested empirically. Based on output forecasts for the Chicago economy, future industrial emissions are estimated. It is found that under the assumption of constant emissions per unit of output, changes in Chicago's industrial mix will lead to increases in the emissions of some pollutants, while discharges of other pollutants decline.The second part further investigates indirect pollution patterns over time, applying Miyazawa's matrix decomposition technique and the concept of a "field of influence" developed by Sonis and Hewings. The results show that Chicago's economy moves towards a "cleaner" structure, where inputs from polluting industries and industries with large shares of polluting inputs are substituted by other, less polluting inputs. Those direct coefficients in an input-output table are identified, whose changes will have significant impacts on the elements of the Leontief inverse which are important in terms of pollution generation.The last part draws on the literature on regional industrial diversification and extends existing regional portfolio models to account for interindustry linkages and include emissions constraints. It is found that interindustry linkages, bounds on changes industrial income shares as well as emissions constraints significantly reduce the potential for efficiency gains. Furthermore, risk reduction through a more equal sectoral distribution is in conflict with pollution prevention efforts aimed at minimizing the shares of polluting sectors.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio