When Do Firms Shift Production across States to Avoid Environmental Regulation?
利用1967-2012年美国造纸业工厂级普查数据，检验各州环境监管严格程度如何影响企业跨州生产配置，发现合规成本较低的企业更可能规避严格监管的州。
<h3>Abstract</h3> This paper tests the impact of state environmental regulatory stringency on firms’ allocation of production across states, using plant-level Census data for the paper industry during 1967-2012. We model the firms’ production shares in each state with a conditional logit specification, testing several measures of state regulatory stringency and controlling for other state characteristics. Firms with relatively low compliance rates are more likely to avoid stringent states, compared to firms with the highest compliance rates. This is consistent in our theoretical model when firms’ compliance decisions are affected more by differences across their costs (rather than their benefits) of compliance.