Accidents Waiting to Happen: Liability Policy and Toxic Pollution Releases

Anna Alberini and David Austin ()

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2002, vol. 84, issue 4, 729-741

Abstract: Proponents of environmental policies based on liability assert that strict liability imposed on polluters induces firms to handle hazardous wastes properly. We examine unintended pollution releases, relating them to the liability imposed on polluters by state mini-Superfund laws. We find that strict liability reduces the frequency and severity of pollution releases, but that its effects vary with firm size. Smaller firms are associated with more pollution releases in states with strict liability, suggesting that in these states smaller firms may have specialized in riskier production processes. Their number, however, has not necessarily grown in response to the state's liability policy. © 2002 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/003465302760556530 link to full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Accidents Waiting to Happen: Liability Policy and Toxic Pollution Releases (2001)
Working Paper: Accidents Waiting to Happen: Liability Policy and Toxic Pollution Releases (2001)
Working Paper: Accidents Waiting to Happen: Liability Policy and Toxic Pollution Releases (1999)
Working Paper: Accidents Waiting to Happen: Liability Policy and Toxic Pollution Releases (1999)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:restat:v:84:y:2002:i:4:p:729-741

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=0034-6535

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Pierre Azoulay, Olivier Coibion, Will Dobbie, Raymond Fisman, Benjamin R. Handel, Brian A. Jacob, Kareen Rozen, Xiaoxia Shi, Tavneet Suri and Yi Xu

More articles in The Review of Economics and Statistics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().