Tiebout Sorting and Toxic Releases

Combining detailed county-to-county migration data with Toxic Release Inventory data, and fine-scale PM2.5 concentration levels, we investigate the relationship between internal migration, income of migrant and non-migrant households and county-level differences in environmental quality. We show that households moving to "cleaner" counties are relatively "richer"- a result consistent with a sorting by income in the spirit of Tiebout (1956). An implication of this finding is that internal migration could contribute to the persistence of disparities in pollution exposure at the county-level

Entry and exit patterns of "toxic" firms

We pair an establishment-level dataset from Texas with public information available in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to evaluate the standing of dirty industries in Texas census tracts with a focus on environmental justice concerns. The share of nonwhite residents in a tract is positively correlated with the number of TRI-reporting firms and an inverse-U-shaped relationship characterizes the number of TRI-reporting firms and a tract's median income. Even after controlling for factor prices and other covariates which might drive firm location decisions, entrants that report to the TRI are more likely to locate in areas with a higher share of nonwhite residents. Firms that report to the TRI are also more likely to enter areas with a low share college graduates. In contrast, the number of entrants from industries which do not have TRI reporters is negatively related to the percent of nonwhite residents in a tract. Firms in these non-reporting industries are also more likely to enter areas with a high share of college graduates. Polluters appear to agglomerate, raising concerns about both chemical releases being concentrated in certain tracts and also affecting nonwhite-dense areas disproportionately. The strength of these effects often depend on an urban/rural classification, with rural areas experiencing the most pronounced concerns. Moreover, TRI-reporting firms are less likely to exit the market relative to their peers which operate in the same industry but do not need to file TRI reports, suggesting releases may affect a region in the long-run

Developing performance measures for a health, safety and environmental performance report for General Mills, Inc.

There is substantial interest in Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) performance as investors are becoming more aware of HSE issues and are beginning to index companies based on their environmental performance. Many other stakeholders are interested in the HSE performance of companies including that of General Mills. They want to be able to compare and contrast HSE performance both within and across industrial sectors. General Mills is responding to this interest and sees an opportunity to take HSE activities to the next level. This thesis reviews current HSE performance reporting trends in general industry and the food industry and proposes useful performance measures for General Mills. It identifies potential HSE performance indicators while considering industry accepted formats, commonly reported indicators in the food industry and the needs of stakeholders. The results were as follows: 1) The most globally accepted reporting format is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); 2) In a cross-section of general industry, all aligned their HSE performance reports with GRI; 3) Reporting in the food industry varies widely from no reporting to extensive reporting against GRI; 4) The most global food companies have the most extensive HSE reports; and 5) General Mills is currently collecting data that, when publicly reported, will place them in the top tier of food companies in terms of HSE performance reporting. This thesis also discusses the format that HSE performance indicators are reported and suggests that GRI indicators may lead to misrepresentation between reporting companies. Key Words: stakeholders; intangible business value; triple bottom line; health; safety; environment; environmental; environmental management; management; environmental, health, and safety management; health, safety, and environmental management; indicators; performance indicators; metrics; business metrics; guidelines; principles; Global Reporting Initiative; GRI; corporate sustainability reports; environmental reports; corporate reporting; safety performance; environmental performance; sustainability; sustainable development; food industry; general industry; General Mill

National environmental policy during the Clinton years

We review major developments in national environmental policy during the Clinton Administration, defining environmental policy to include not only the statutes, regulations, and policies associated with reducing pollution, but also major issues of public lands management and species preservation. We adopt economic criteria for policy assessment — principally efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and distributional equity. While the paper is primarily descriptive, we highlight a set of themes that emerge in the economics of national environmental policy over the past decade

Testing the construct validity of competing measurement approaches to probed mind-wandering reports

Psychology faces a measurement crisis, and mind-wandering research is not immune. The present study explored the construct validity of probed mind-wandering reports (i.e., reports of task-unrelated thought [TUT]) with a combined experimental and individual-differences approach. We examined laboratory data from over 1000 undergraduates at two U.S. institutions, who responded to one of four different thought-probe types across two cognitive tasks. We asked a fundamental measurement question: Do different probe types yield different results, either in terms of average reports (average TUT rates, TUT-report confidence ratings), or in terms of TUT-report associations, such as TUT rate or confidence stability across tasks, or between TUT reports and other consciousness-related constructs (retrospective mind-wandering ratings, executive-control performance, and broad questionnaire trait assessments of distractibility–restlessness and positive-constructive daydreaming)? Our primary analyses compared probes that asked subjects to report on different dimensions of experience: TUT-content probes asked about what they’d been mind-wandering about, TUT-intentionality probes asked about why they were mind-wandering, and TUT-depth probes asked about the extent (on a rating scale) of their mind-wandering. Our secondary analyses compared thought-content probes that did versus didn’t offer an option to report performance-evaluative thoughts. Our findings provide some “good news”—that some mind-wandering findings are robust across probing methods—and some “bad news”—that some findings are not robust across methods and that some commonly used probing methods may not tell us what we think they do. Our results lead us to provisionally recommend content-report probes rather than intentionality- or depth-report probes for most mind-wandering research

Director appointments, boardroom networks, and firm environmental performance

Using BoardEx (2000{2017), we create a dynamic network connecting firms and board directors for the United States. We use the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory to measure environmental performance at the director and rm-level. We examine how a candidate's environmental performance and networks affect director appointments. This allows us to endogenize the effect of directors' environmental experience when studying the impact on firms' chemical releases. We show that firms are likely to appoint influential directors with good environmental records and similar characteristics. Further, boards with good environmental performance and with diverse environmental backgrounds improve firms' environmental performance

An upper echelons view of the antecedents to effectiveness : the financial and environmental performance of oil refiners

Little systematic research has investigated the impact of the environmental movement on organizational performance and the limited evidence is often regarded as contradictory and inconclusive. The debate has recently been renewed with vigor as some contend that the environmental movement harms the economic vibrancy of U.S. businesses whereas others contend that it has provided a new source of competitive advantage. This research seeks to understand the relationship between two important types of organizational performance — financial performance and pollution performance — and to identify their antecedents. Both types of performance are argued to be part of organizational effectiveness. Upper Echelons theory (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) was extended and applied to predict these two types of organizational performance within the U.S. oil refining industry. The refining industry has generally reduced pollution but exhibited high variability in both the levels of pollution produced by firms and the rates at which those levels were reduced. It was concluded that the Upper Echelons model is suitable for investigating organizational effectiveness issues and was capable of revealing the tradeoffs in decision making for effectiveness. Older and long-tenured top managers tended to reside in firms that produced higher pollution levels and had lower profitability. Two strategy variables, strategic flexibility and modernization strategy, best revealed the tradeoffs inherent in decision making for organizational effectiveness. Results suggested that in choosing flexible processes in this industry, refineries produced higher pollution levels but were able to make much larger reductions in pollution levels. Flexible processes were also associated with higher gains in profitability during times of generally declining profitability for the rest of the industry. Results also suggested that investing in more modem facilities resulted in lower pollution levels but further reductions in those levels became difficult. Additionally, modernization depressed current profitability but the trend in profitability growth was greater than for refiners with older facilities. Reduced pollution levels were associated with increased profitability but only for those firms that made large reductions in pollution relative to their initial pollution levels. Thus, pollution reductions appear to be a source of competitive advantage

Toxicological profile for 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane

prepared by Research Triangle Institute under contract no. 205-93-0606 ; prepared for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry."Prepared by Research Triangle Institute under contract no. 205- 93-0606.""August 1996.""This toxicological profile is prepared in accordance with guidelines developed by ATSDR and EPA."Also available on the World Wide Web (accessed 29 Sept. 2009).Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-145)