The Environmental Protection Agency oversees policies that reduce harmful effluents related to human health and environmental quality. At various stages of production, firms in the oil and gas industry are instrumental in implementing EPA policies. The original 1970s EPA was revised in 1990 to account for acid rain and to reduce motor vehicle emissions. These revisions may have reduced oil and gas shareholder wealth. As firms sought to adjust to a changing regulatory environment, this study finds that the EPA's 1990 revision effects were minimal on firm value, and across the oil and gas industry, revisions to the 1990 EPA's role did not affect shareholder wealth from equity and commodity returns. For oil and gas producers, it is difficult to identify and measure regulatory effects on shareholder wealth, indicating that criterion pollutant reduction need not systematically reduce shareholder wealth.
In this work, we consider five income classes and study their evolution between 2007 and 2017, specifically the middle class. Because income polarization is associated with a lack of cohesion in a society comprising different groups, we also calculate the polarization of income classes. Likewise, we analyze the redistributive effects of public policies (taxes and transfers) on income classes and income polarization. The main conclusions derived from this analysis are that the middle class remained relatively stable in 2007-2009. However, from 2010 onward, the middle class declined. The polarization index increased from 2007 to 2013. Although the scenario started improving in 2014, several indicators have not yet returned to pre-crisis levels. In turn, the state has helped by using measures to increase the size of the middle class and decrease polarization indices.
