Socioeconomic Disparities in Privatized Pollution Remediation: Evidence from Toxic Chemical Spills

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Marion, Justin; West, Jeremy
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20220295
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 219-249
• 关键词: hazardous-waste cleanup; environmental justice; manipulation; CORRUPTION; ECONOMICS; benefits; DESIGN; MARKET; RACE

摘要

Governments often privatize the administration of regulations to third-party specialists paid for by the regulated parties. We study how the resulting conflict of interest can have unintended consequences for the distributional impacts of regulation. In Massachusetts, the party responsible for hazardous waste contamination must hire a licensed contractor to quantify the environmental severity. We find that contractors' evaluations favor their clients, exhibiting substantial score bunching just below thresholds that determine government oversight of the remediation. Client favoritism is more pronounced in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and is associated with inferior remediation quality, highlighting a novel channel for inequities in pollution exposure.