On Spatial Heterogeneity in Environmental Compliance Costs

Randy Becker

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: This paper examines the extent of variation in regulatory stringency below the state level, using establishment-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey to estimate a county-level index of environmental compliance costs (ECC). County-level variation is found to explain 11-18 times more of the variation in ECC than state-level variation alone, and the range of ECC within a state is often large. At least 34% of U.S. counties have ECC that are statistically different from their states’. Results suggest that important spatial variation is lost in state-level studies of environmental regulation.

Keywords: environmental costs; regulation; manufacturing; U.S. counties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H73 Q52 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2009-09, Revised 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2009/CES-WP-09-25R.pdf Revised version, 2010 (application/pdf)
https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2009/CES-WP-09-25.pdf First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: On Spatial Heterogeneity in Environmental Compliance Costs (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:09-25

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