Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature

Daniel Millimet

No 7831, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Environmental federalism refers to the debate over the 'optimal' level of government at which to delegate environmental policymaking. Although this issue receives widespread attention across the globe, opinions run the gamut. The diversity of views plays out in practice as well as different federations have 'resolved' the issue differently. With the United States alone, environmental authority has oscillated between periods of relatively greater centralized and decentralized control. This article seeks to accomplish two objectives in order to advance the literature. The first objective is to provide a brief overview of the two primary theoretical frameworks – Tiebout (1956) and models of interjurisdictional competition – used to explore the effects of the decentralization of policy decisions such as taxes, expenditures, environmental standards, etc. The reason for doing so is to illuminate the issues that play a fundamental role in conclusions regarding the 'optimal' allocation of environmental authority. The second objective is to then provide a comprehensive survey of the relevant empirical literatures. By doing so, the goal is to limit the scope of the debate over environmental federalism moving forward, as well as make clear where the gaps in empirical knowledge exist.

Keywords: federalism; Tiebout; interjurisdictional competition; environmental regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H77 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2013-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published - published in: Case Western Reserve Law Review, 2014, 64 (4), 1669-1757

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7831.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:iza:izadps:dp7831

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().