Towards a General Theory of Environmental Inequality: Social Characteristics of Townships and the Distribution of Pollution in China’s Jiangsu Province Ethan D. Schoolmana* and Chunbo Mab aDepartment of Sociology, University of Michigan, 500 S. State St., Rm. 3001, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Email:
[email protected] bSchool of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. Email:
[email protected] *Corresponding author: Tel 001-518-257-0471; Fax 001-734-763-6887 07 November 2011 Working Paper 1123 School of Agricultural and Resource Economics http://www.are.uwa.edu.au Citation: Schoolman, Ethan D. and Chunbo Ma. (2011) Towards a General Theory of Environmental Inequality: Social Characteristics of Townships and the Distribution of Pollution in China’s Jiangsu Province, Working Paper 1123, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. © Copyright remains with the authors of this document. Towards a General Theory of Environmental Inequality: Social Characteristics of Townships and the Distribution of Pollution in China’s Jiangsu Province Key Words: Environmental Inequality, Hukou System, Pollution, China JEL: D63, J15, J61, Q53, R12, R23 1. Introduction Social scientists have explored the distribution of pollution and pollution-based health risk in the U.S. for nearly three decades. Consensus on whether environmental inequality exists in the U.S., and if so why, has evaded researchers for much of this time, and the scientific merit of early work in particular has been called into question (Bowen 2002). In recent years, however, data and methods of analysis have diversified and improved, in ways that we review below, and the findings of researchers have begun to converge.