Panel Data Analysis of Regulatory Factors Shaping Environmental Performance

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465304323023895#.U1q6GIUvDGI.This paper analyzes the regulatory factors shaping environmental performance at individual polluting facilities. In particular, it examines the influence of actual government interventions, namely, inspections and enforcement actions performed at specific facilities. This influence represents specific deterrence. This paper also examines general deterrence, that is, the threat of receiving an intervention. As important, it controls for differences in certain regulatory features of facility-specific pollution control permits. Unlike previous attempts to examine regulatory factors, this analysis uses panel data techniques to capture the heterogeneity across individual facilities, while exploring the dynamics of each facility; the analysis also captures heterogeneity across individual time periods

Enforcement of Environmental Protection Laws under Communism and Democracy

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/467377.Lax enforcement of environmental protection laws in the formerly communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe is offered as one contributing factor to the large‐scale environmental degradation that these countries have experienced. This article empirically examines enforcement responses to water‐damaging “accidents” (for example, an oil spill) in the Czech Republic for the year 1988–92, a time period that spans both the communist political regime and the democratic political regime. In particular, it focuses on ex post penalties: required remediation (for example, cleanup after an oil spill) and monetary fines. Empirical analysis reveals the factors driving enforcement strategies in each political period and contrasts their influence under the two regimes. In particular, it identifies the operative liability rules guiding remediation and monetary fine decisions

The Evolution of Economies of Scale Regarding Pollution Control: Cross-Sectional Evidence from a Transition Economy

This is the publisher's version, also available from http://www.na-businesspress.com/JMPP/jmppsubscriptions.html.This paper assesses whether firms face economies and/or diseconomies of scale with respect to air pollution control by evaluating the effects of production on firm-level air emission levels. To achieve this objective, this paper uses an unbalanced panel of Czech firms during the country’s transitional period of 1993 to 1998. By examining each year separately, the analysis permits firms’ abilities to control air pollution to vary over time. In general, results indicate that, as production rises, Czech firms first face diseconomies of scale but later enjoy economies of scale

Countervailing effects of atrazine on water recreation: How do recreators evaluate them?

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2002WR001598/abstract;jsessionid=E412CD5D75BE2BF9BC7052CBAAC6509E.f02t04.This paper examines the countervailing effects of atrazine on water recreational choices. The presence of atrazine in waterbodies potentially reduces the symptoms of eutrophication, which is a condition of low water quality due to nutrient enrichment. Eutrophication frequently undermines recreational enjoyment and diminishes recreational use of affected waterbodies. Thus increased atrazine concentrations could induce greater recreation. However, atrazine also potentially decreases the mass and size of fish populations; this loss potentially reduces recreational use. To examine empirically these countervailing effects on recreational use, this study gathers and generates data on actual recreation under initial water quality conditions and stated recreation under hypothetical quality conditions, which vary eutrophication-related and fish-related quality independently and jointly. This economic study uses a travel cost framework and the associated contingent behavior framework to analyze these data

Effectiveness of Government Interventions at Inducing Better Environmental Performance: Does Effectiveness Depend on Facility or Firm Features?

Environmental agencies have several options for dealing with alleged noncompliance with environmental regulations. These options include pursuit of administrative or judicial civil penalties and injunctions to prevent future violations. Scholars have begun exploring whether these options induce better performance by regulated entities. This Article addresses a largely neglected question: whether a regulated facility’s characteristics affect the efficacy of the different enforcement options. The Article stems from a study of compliance by the chemical industry with federal Clean Water Act permits. It assesses whether facility characteristics, including effluent limit level and type, permit modifications, facility size, capacity utilization, discharge volatility, and ownership structure, theoretically should make a difference and actually appeared to do so at the facilities covered by the study. The findings should be of interest to both facilities regulated under the Clean Water Act and federal and state regulators seeking to maximize the impact of their enforcement actions

Optimal Use of Information in Litigation: Should Regulatory Information Be Withheld to Deter Frivolous Suits?

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/rje_online.cgi?action=view&year=1997&issue=spr&page=120&&tid=120734&sc=rozmKsTqWe examine the value of incorporating regulatory information into the court liability decision and making it publicly available when the causality of harm is uncertain. Public access to regulatory information, coupled with its use in a liability decision, not only improves the accuracy of court adjudication but also guides victims to more informed decisions about their lawsuits, when victims' private information on causality of harm is verifiable to the court. When victims' information is unverifiable, however, withholding regulatory information until after victims bring lawsuits induces them to utilize their private information better in their litigation decisions

Depiction of the Regulator-Regulated Entity Relationship in the Chemical Industry: Deterrence-Based vs. Cooperative Enforcement

For years, scholars and environmental policymakers have conducted a spirited debate about the comparative merits of two different approaches to enforcement of the nation\u27s environmental laws: the coercive (or deterrence-based) and cooperative approaches. Supporters of the coercive model regard the deterrence of violations as the fundamental purpose of enforcement. They regard the imposition of sanctions, which make it less costly for regulated entities to comply with their regulatory responsibilities and avoid enforcement than to fail to comply and run the risk of enforcement, as the most effective way for inducing regulated entities to comply with their regulatory obligations. Proponents of the cooperative approach to environmental enforcement focus more on compliance than deterrence. The cooperative approach emphasizes the provision of compliance assistance and incentives by regulatory agencies. They contend that a coercive approach to enforcement may even be counterproductive if it engenders intransigence and ill will on the part of regulated entities. Few studies empirically test these competing theories about how best to induce environmental compliance. Our study, which is based on a survey of chemical manufacturing facilities that are regulated under the federal Clean Water Act ( CWA ), represents an effort to begin addressing the paucity of information on the effects of the two enforcement approaches on environmental compliance and behavior. Although most of the respondents to our survey describe the relationships they have with their CWA regulators as generally either cooperative or coercive, they also report that some particular aspects of their relationships are more consistent with one enforcement approach, while other aspects are more consistent with the other enforcement approach. Our study calculates and interprets the correlations between all of the various aspects of the regulator-regulated entity relationship, especially the overall type of relationship: coercive versus cooperative. The results reveal only weak correlation between the various measures capturing the relationship between the regulator and the regulated entity. Cross-tabulation of the responses to all possible pairs of relationship aspects also reveals less than complete overlap between the various measures capturing the relationship between the regulator and the regulated entity. We conclude that the relationship between a regulator and a regulated entity consists of multiple dimensions. Environmental scholars and policymakers should recognize the nuanced nature of these relationships if they are to provide the most meaningful contributions to the ongoing debate over the impacts of coercive and cooperative enforcement approaches on the behavior and performance of regulated entities

Planting Food or Fuel: Developing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Role of Culture in Farmers’ Decisions to Grow Second-Generation Biofuel Feedstock Crops

Recent interest in biofuels as an alternative energy source has spurred considerable changes in agricultural practice worldwide. These changes will be more pronounced as second-generation biofuels, such as switch grass, gain prominence; this article examines the cultural factors associated with the decisions U.S. farmers face in targeting crops for fuel production instead of food. Through an interdisciplinary assessment of the dynamics of farmers' behavior, developed herein is a theoretical framework to analyze how farmers grapple with shifting expectations of their function.National Science Foundation EPS-0903806, KU-Transportation Research Institut

The environmental effects of crop price increases: Nitrogen losses in the U.S. Corn Belt

Citation: Hendricks, N. P., Sinnathamby, S., Douglas-Mankin, K., Smith, A., Sumner, D. A., & Earnhart, D. H. (2014). The environmental effects of crop price increases: Nitrogen losses in the U.S. Corn Belt. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 68(3), 507–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2014.09.002High corn prices cause farmers to plant more corn on fields that were planted to corn in the previous year, rather than alternating between corn and soybeans. Cultivating corn after corn requires greater nitrogen fertilizer and some of this nitrogen flows into waterways and causes environmental damage. We estimate the effect of crop prices on nitrogen losses for most fields in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana using crop data from satellite imagery. Spatial variation in these high-resolution estimates highlights the fact that the environmental effects of agriculture depend not only on what is grown, but also on where and in what sequence it is grown. Our results suggest that the change in corn and soybean prices due to a billion gallons of ethanol production expands the size of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico by roughly 30 square miles on average, although there is considerable uncertainty in this estimate

Ethanol plant location and intensification vs. extensification of corn cropping in Kansas

This is the author final draft. Copyright 2014 Elsevier.Farmers' cropping decisions are a product of a complex mix of socio-economic, cultural, and natural environments in which factors operating at a number of different spatial scales affect how farmers ultimately decide to use their land in any given year or over a set of years. Some environmentalists are concerned that increased demand for corn driven by ethanol production is leading to conversion of non-cropland into corn production (which we label as “extensification”). Ethanol industry advocates counter that more than enough corn supply comes from crop switching to corn and increased yields (which we label as “intensification”). In this study, we determine whether either response to corn demand – intensification or extensification – is supported. This is determined through an analysis of land-use/land-cover (LULC) data that covers the state of Kansas and a measure of a corn demand shifter related to ethanol production – distance to the closest ethanol plant – between 2007 and 2009