The impact of environmental stringency on capital flows remains a hotly contested issue. Moreover, existing parametric estimates using counts of new foreign-owned manufacturing plant births provide counter-intuitive results: pollution abatement costs are only found to have an impact in non-pollution-intensive sectors. Applying recently developed nonparametric count data methods, we re-visit thi...

This paper uses innovation strengths indicators based on pollution prevention and abatement (or antipollution) patents lodged at the US Patent and Trademark Office for the period 1975-2002 to: (i) analyse trends in the patenting of anti-pollution technologies in the USA; and (ii) provide international rankings for the development of anti-pollution technologies. Annual data used for the innovati...

We study the technological pre-conditions for a cost-minimizing choice of technique in the presence of government emission targets on by-products of production. Whether a by-product is a desirable commodity or an undesirable pollutant is determined endogeneously as part of the price-quantity equilibrium solution. Non-trivial counterexamples highlight the potential risk of over-ambitious polluti...

While theory suggests that information programs may correct market failures and improve welfare, the empirical impacts of these policies remain undetermined. We show that mandatory disclosure programs in the electricity industry achieve stated policy goals. We find that the proportion of fossil fuels decreases, and the proportion of clean fuels increases in response to disclosure programs. Howe...

We investigate the empirical evidence that firms abate their pollution in response to green consumerism facilitated by dissemination of information through toxic release inventories. Lacking direct observational data on the extent of green consumerism, we construct an indirect method to elicit its effect on pollution abatement. Assuming that environmentally-motivated consumers cannot attribute ...

This paper estimates the effect of changing environmental standards on patterns of international investment. The analysis advances the existing literature in three ways. First, we avoid comparing different countries by examining foreign direct investment in the United States and differences in pollution abatement costs among U.S. states. Data on environmental costs in U.S. states are more compa...

OBJECTIVES Growing concern over the costs, environmental impact and safety of tobacco product litter (TPL) has prompted states and cities to undertake a variety of policy initiatives, of which litter abatement fees are part. The present work describes a framework and methodology for calculating TPL costs and abatement fees. METHODS Abatement is associated with four categories of costs: (1) me...

This paper investigates two aspects of China's pollution levy system that has been implemented for about 20 years in China. First, the determinants of differences in enforcement of the pollution levy across urban areas are analyzed. The results show that actual collections of the uniformly designed pollution levy are sensitive to differences in economic development and environmental quality, wh...

This paper answers three questions related to the discrete nature of pollution abatement: (i) does a source's incremental control cost (as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) necessarily exceed its average control cost, (ii) is incremental control cost a better approximation of a source's willingness to pay for abatement credits than average control cost, and (iii) exactly how ...

A case study of the Nandesari Industrial Estate in Gujarat, India, demonstrates the roles played by different agents in industrial water pollution abatement: affected parties, polluters, nongovernmental organizations, regulators, and the court. The study empirically estimates the “benefits” and “costs” of water pollution abatement for a cluster of 250 small-scale industries at Nandesari, and us...