私有化污染修复中的社会经济差异：来自有毒化学品泄漏的证据
Socioeconomic Disparities in Privatized Pollution Remediation: Evidence from Toxic Chemical Spills
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · 2024 · [{"name": "Justin Marion", "affiliation": ["University of California, Santa Cruz"]}, {"name": "Jeremy West", "affiliation": ["University of California, Santa Cruz"]}]
中文摘要
政府常常将规制的执行管理私有化，交由受监管方付费聘请的第三方专家负责。我们研究由此产生的利益冲突如何对监管的分配影响产生意外后果。在马萨诸塞州，对危险废物污染负责的一方必须聘请持证承包商来量化环境严重程度。我们发现，承包商的评估偏向其客户，表现为评分在决定政府是否监督修复的阈值下方出现显著堆积。客户偏袒在社会经济处境不利的社区中更为明显，并且与较差的修复质量相关，这揭示了污染暴露不平等的一个新渠道。(JEL: D63, J15, K32, L51, Q53, R23)
Abstract
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. (JEL D63, J15, K32, L51, Q53, R23)