"Deindustrialization, stagnant real incomes of production workers, and increasing inequality are latter day features of many economies. It is common to assume that such developments pressure policymakers to relax environmental standards. However, when heavily polluting industries become less...

We argue that centralized and decentralized environmental governance yield equivalent environmental regulations. We model worker, environmental, and capital owner lobby groups that seek influence by offering political contributions. Worker lobbying in the decentralized case has an effect on...