Assessing the costs of additional sulfur emissions regulations on the economy of Ohio: The intersectoral impacts of acid rain control

he acid rain abatement programs proposed in Congress, like any additional pollution control measures, may result in substantial economic impacts to the state of Ohio. Two major impacts identified in this study are coal mining production rollbacks and increases in electricity rates. These impacts are compared using two alternative scenarios for reducing sulfur emissions in Ohio: (1) fuel switching restrictions and (2) no fuel switching restrictions.;This study develops a model through which the decision-maker can assess the secondary impacts associated with each policy option. This is accomplished using a 1984 regional input-output model for Ohio formulated using the survey based 1977 U.S. input-output tables and the available information on the Ohio Economy. Concentrating on the Ohio coal mining industry and the manufacturing industries that use electricity intensively as an input, the multipliers associated with each sector are derived and compared.;The transactions matrix is reformulated to derive the supply driven model and the relevant input multipliers. Both demand and supply driven multipliers are applied to scenario specific estimates of coal mining production and associated electricity price increase estimates to determine the range of potential impacts resulting from each major scenario.;The model results indicate that adding fuel switching restrictions reduces the total output effect from lost coal mining production in Ohio by...