Conference Agenda

As economies seek to decarbonize heavy industry, quantifying the local tradeoffs between environmental quality and economic activity is essential. This paper examines the environmental, health, and labor market impacts of coal-intensive, blast furnace-based steel production using historical evidence from the United States and contemporary evidence from China. Leveraging data on 242 U.S. blast furnaces operating in 1965 and a staggered difference-in-differences design, we estimate the causal effects of blast furnace closures on air pollution, employment, and infant mortality from the 1960s through the 2010s. We find that closures reduced Total Suspended Particles (TSP) by 11.5 μg/m³ within two years and lowered infant mortality by 0.36 deaths per 1,000 live births (2.4 percent), with substantially larger gains for non-white populations. Manufacturing employment declined following closures but was largely offset by gains in non-manufacturing jobs, leaving total employment unchanged. Complementary evidence from China shows that new steel plant openings increase PM2.5 concentrations by nearly 2 μg/m³ within four years. Together, these results highlight the substantial public health co-benefits of transitioning away from coal-intensive blast furnace steel production, with implications for industrial decarbonization in developing economies.