Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The potential of pollution markets to exacerbate localized air pollution “hotspots” has led some to call the equity of such markets into serious question. This is not to suggest that conventional direct regulation is likely to eliminate variation in levels of pollution concentrations across differently situated locales. Nevertheless, it is over the ideal of feasible mitigation across all sources of pollution that the direct regulation and emissions trading approaches fundamentally diverge. The very quality that direct regulation conceives of as its virtue—across the board implementation of state-of-the-art controls—are construed by market approaches as an overly rigid rule in need of relaxation. The origins of this divergence, this paper will argue, are to be found in the respective legal traditions in which each of the two regulatory paradigms are rooted. Whereas technology standards are at their core a civil law instrument; emissions trading resonate with common law sensibilities. Support for this thesis comes from the significance of the common law’s locality doctrine in Coase’s “The Problem of Social Cost.” Through analysis of the common law’s role in Coase’s work the proposed article highlights important continuities between applicable regulatory suppositions under nuisance law and emissions trading. For students of comparative regulatory politics, the family resemblance between emissions trading and common law principles may help explain differences in the reception accorded to pollution markets in the U.S. and on the continent. The affinity between these markets and the common law can likewise help clarify the normative choices at stake.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper analyzes the adoption of innovative environmental policy in water pollution control in the United States. A logistic regression model is employed to test the factors that influence the adoption of such innovative policy instruments.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The polluter pays principle (PPP) has been part of the environmental policy discourse and policy toolkit for more than two decades. Institutions such as the EU and countries like the Netherlands and Germany have made it a cornerstone of their environmenta

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although the relationship between the globalization of trade and persistent organic water pollutants has recently garnered significant attention in macrosociology, empirical studies neglect to address the impact of foreign direct investment on this form of environmental degradation. We address this paucity by testing models for macro-level causes of organic water pollution. We consider the direct, indirect, total, and interaction effects of foreign direct investment in agriculture, export commodity concentration, domestic investment, and economic development on organic water pollution intensity. Results suggest that both foreign direct investment in agriculture and export commodity concentration positively effect water pollution intensity. Conversely, higher rates of domestic investment are associated with lower levels of water pollution. While economic development is inversely related with pollution intensity, this effect is largely accounted for by mediating factors. Strong evidence is found suggesting that foreign investment interacts with export dependence in its environmental impacts. Results of this study advance our collective understanding of the complexities of investment and trade globalization, domestic conditions, and uneven environmental outcomes, and illustrate the necessity for taking a more nuanced approach to analyses of anthropogenic caused degradation of the global ecological system.

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Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: An interesting problem that arises when studying urban environmental inequality is that industrial facilities produce jobs as well as pollution, leading some researchers to ask whether industrial facilities are socially desirable, socially undesirable, or both, and whether the pollution burdens and employment benefits of industrial activity are borne by the same individuals, neighborhoods, and social group. Although these are important questions, no study that I am aware of has attempted to determine whether industrial facility employment or pollution is a stronger predictor of neighborhood demographic composition. This paper addresses this shortcoming in the literature by asking whether industrial facility pollution or employment is a stronger predictor of neighborhood racial composition in the Detroit metropolitan area in 2000. Results indicate that industrial facility pollution, proximity, and employment are all statistically significant predictors of the percentage of blacks in a tract. The strength of the association between air pollutant concentration levels and percent black is virtually the same as the strength of the association between factory employment opportunities and percent black. However, both of the facility proximity indicators used in this study are more strongly associated with percent black than is industrial employment opportunities. Moreover, it is likely that the variable used to measure employment opportunities overestimates the industrial employment opportunities available to blacks. Thus, although Detroit’s black neighborhoods experience both employment benefits and pollution burdens from local industrial activity, the pollution burdens appear to outweigh the employment benefits.

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