IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/brd/wpaper/45.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What we Know About What we Know About Toxic Polluter Behavior from the TRI: Evidence from (almost) Twenty Years of TRI Data in The Petroleum Refining Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Linda T. M. Bui

    (Department of Economics, Brandeis University)

Abstract

Using the TRI to understand polluting behavior can pose challenges due to the limited number of chemicals that are reported, the potential confounding effect of several regulatory programs that affect TRI substances, the lack of output information, and judgments regarding appropriate measures of releases. In an effort both to help illustrate and clarify these issues, I study TRI data from the petroleum refining industry using a balanced panel of 199 refineries from 1988-2003. I find that (1) although both aggregate and toxicity-weighted releases exhibited large declines over the period of study, the pattern of releases were substantially different, strongly suggesting that any inference that is drawn from the data will be sensitive to the measure of releases; and (2) regulatory programs can affect TRI releases both directly and indirectly. The direct effect occurs because emissions of several TRI substances are simultaneously regulated under the CAA and CWA (and other environmental programs and policies. The indirect effect occurs when regulatory programs induce changes in the set of inputs or the production process, leading to changes in TRI releases of substances that are not directly regulated under these programs. Thus, simply “netting-out” CAA and CWA substances from the TRI will not necessarily remove the confounding effects of these regulatory programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda T. M. Bui, 2012. "What we Know About What we Know About Toxic Polluter Behavior from the TRI: Evidence from (almost) Twenty Years of TRI Data in The Petroleum Refining Industry," Working Papers 45, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:brd:wpaper:45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.brandeis.edu/economics/RePEc/brd/doc/Brandeis_WP45.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bui, Linda T.M. & Kapon, Samuel, 2012. "The impact of voluntary programs on polluting behavior: Evidence from pollution prevention programs and toxic releases," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 31-44.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kube, Roland & von Graevenitz, Kathrine & Löschel, Andreas & Massier, Philipp, 2019. "Do voluntary environmental programs reduce emissions? EMAS in the German manufacturing sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(S1).
    2. Fraas, Art & Egorenkov, Alex, 2015. "A Retrospective Study of EPA’s Air Toxics Program under the Revised Section 112 Requirements of the Clean Air Act," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-23, Resources for the Future.
    3. Stephen Bahadar & Muhammad Nadeem & Rashid Zaman, 2023. "Toxic chemical releases and idiosyncratic return volatility: A prospect theory perspective," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 2109-2143, June.
    4. Li Chang & Wenjing Li & Xiaoyan Lu, 2015. "Government Engagement, Environmental Policy, and Environmental Performance: Evidence from the Most Polluting Chinese Listed Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 1-19, January.
    5. Martina Vidovic & Michael S. Delgado & Neha Khanna, 2019. "Third‐Party Certification And The Effectiveness Of Voluntary Pollution Abatement Programs: Evidence From Responsible Care," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(4), pages 1751-1770, October.
    6. Sangyoul Lee & Xiang Bi, 2019. "Can adoption of pollution prevention techniques reduce pollution substitution?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-18, November.
    7. Linh Pham & Travis Roach, 2024. "Spillover benefits of carbon dioxide cap and trade: Evidence from the Toxics Release Inventory," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 449-467, January.
    8. Huang, Henry He & Liu, Chanjuan & Sun, Li, 2019. "Chemical releases and corporate cash holdings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 159-173.
    9. Finger, Stephen R. & Gamper-Rabindran, Shanti, 2013. "Mandatory disclosure of plant emissions into the environment and worker chemical exposure inside plants," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 124-136.
    10. Zhou, P. & Delmas, M.A. & Kohli, A., 2017. "Constructing meaningful environmental indices: A nonparametric frontier approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 21-34.
    11. Christopher J. Blackburn & Mallory E. Flowers & Daniel C. Matisoff & Juan Moreno-Cruz, 2018. "Do Pilot and Demonstration Projects Work?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7252, CESifo.
    12. Fabien Martinez, 2015. "A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Framework of Corporate Water Responsibility," Post-Print hal-02887624, HAL.
    13. Xiang Bi & Connor Mullally, 2021. "Does Peer Adoption Increase the Diffusion of Pollution Prevention Practices?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 97(1), pages 224-245.
    14. Li, Huan & Khanna, Neha & Vidovic, Martina, 2014. "Third Party Certification and Self-Regulation: Evidence from Responsible Care and Accidents in the US Chemical Industry," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170492, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Bin Ni, 2015. "Productivity, Capital Intensity and ISO14001 Adoption \Theory and Evidence from Vietnam," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 15-26, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    16. Keith Brouhle & Brad Graham & Donna Ramirez Harrington, 2023. "Patents and P2: Innovation and Technology Adoption for Environmental Improvements," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(2), pages 439-474, February.
    17. Henian Wang & Xinxiao Yu, 2014. "A review of the protection of sources of drinking water in China," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 99-108, May.
    18. Huan Li & Neha Khanna & Martina Vidovic, 2018. "The effects of third party certification on voluntary self-regulation of accidents in the U.S. chemical industry," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 327-356, June.
    19. Gupta, Sonam & Innes, Robert, 2014. "Private politics and environmental management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 319-339.
    20. Daniel Matisoff, 2015. "Sources of specification errors in the assessment of voluntary environmental programs: understanding program impacts," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(1), pages 109-126, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:brd:wpaper:45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrea Luna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsbraus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.