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Environmental Free Riding in State Water Pollution Enforcement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

David M. Konisky  and
Neal D. Woods
David M. Konisky*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
Neal D. Woods
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
*
David M. Konisky, Georgetown University, Old North Building (Suite 303), 37th & O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA. Email: dmk74@georgetown.edu
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Abstract

Interjurisdictional pollution spillovers are a critical issue in U.S. environmental policy. When policy responsibility is decentralized, state governmental agencies have incentives to promote these externalities in order to capture the benefits of economic activity within their borders while compelling neighbors to shoulder the resultant environmental costs. To test this free riding hypothesis, prior studies have relied on crude proxies to delineate a regulated entity's proximity to a neighboring state. In this article, we develop a more refined set of measures using newly available data on facility location to isolate the conditions under which free riding is theoretically more likely to occur. We then assess state enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act directed at major water polluters under these conditions to determine the extent to which U.S. states engage in environmental free riding behavior. Our empirical results are mixed, but in general they fail to support theoretical expectations generated by the free rider argument.

Keywords

environmental policyfederalismpolicy implementationpublic policyregulatory policy
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 227 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

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