Evaluating the Effectiveness of Voluntary Programs: Did Ohio's Tox-Minus Initiative Affect Participants' TRI Emissions?

Ann Wolverton, Charles Griffiths and William Wheeler

No 201605, NCEE Working Paper Series from National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract: In this paper we evaluate whether Ohio’s Tox-Minus Initiative had a discernible effect on participants’ emission reductions relative to non-participants. We expect this to be the case if there are private benefits of program participation that outweigh its costs. To investigate whether the Tox-Minus Initiative resulted in greater reductions in TRI-reported air emissions from the top 100 emitters, we use a triple difference approach to compare emissions before and after the program. This is done using both the simple difference in emissions between 2003 and 2012 and a fixed-effects, panel regression. To form an appropriate comparison for participants, we use propensity score matching estimation techniques based on pre-participation attributes. Our results suggest that being invited to the program, regardless of whether a facility joined the Tox-Minus Initiative, produced a significant decline in the absolute level of air emissions. Degree of regulatory attention also appears important, though we find that participants reduced emissions subject to the Clean Air Act by significantly more than non-participants in the post policy period.

Keywords: voluntary programs; toxic releases; air emissions; program effectiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2016-12, Revised 2016-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/workin ... ograms-did-ohios-tox First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

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