TY  - BOOK
AU  -  West, Jeremy
AU  - 2024
AU  - Marion, Justin
TI  - Socioeconomic Disparities in Privatized Pollution Remediation: Evidence from Toxic Chemical Spills
SN  - 1945-7782
PB  - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
KW  -  Hazardous Waste
KW  -  Neighborhood Characteristics
KW  -  Noise
KW  -  Regional Labor Markets
KW  -  Solid Waste
KW  - Population
N2  - 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
UR  - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20220295
ER  -