Alexander Frei, Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Large parts of northern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York lie above the Marcellus Shale, a vast subterranean expanse of rock estimated to contain up to 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.REF Pennsylvania has allowed companies to extract natural gas with the technique known as hydraulic fracturing—also called hydrofracturing and fracking.REF This method is combined with drilling in which the drill extends horizontally through the rock formation to expand the areas of access and allow more of it to be tapped.
Pennsylvania counties above the Marcellus Shale are bustling with this “unconventional drilling,” while neighboring New York declared a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques in 2010.REF New York debated the use of these techniques until 2014, when Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) administration announced that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State completely.REF
This scenario presents a natural experiment ideally suited for applying a difference-in-differences (DID) regression analysis to assess the effect of the hydraulic fracturing ban. This Special Report focuses on the Twin Tiers, a total of 14 counties rich in natural gas that lie on the border of southwestern New York and northern Pennsylvania. By focusing on the Twin Tiers one can compare the same natural gas resources in the two states. New York’s 2010 hydraulic fracturing ban is the onset of the treatment, with the seven New York counties designated as the treatment group. In contrast, the seven Pennsylvania counties, unaffected by the ban, serve as the control group.
The geographical proximity and economic similarities between these two sets of counties provide a robust basis for estimating the income and job losses in New York attributable to the ban. The authors’ findings indicate that approximately $11,000 per capita—$27,000 per family—could have been created in New York in the absence of the ban.
Background
The shale revolution started in the late 1990sREF when energy companies employed a new method of extracting oil and natural gas that is trapped within the tiny pore spaces of shale rock. » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/energy/report/hydraulic-fracturing-and-economic-outcomes-study-marcellus-shale-counties