Dynamic Regulation with Firm Linkages: Evidence from Texas
研究了动态关联环境监管的效率，发现对同一所有者的多家工厂进行关联执法比非关联或非针对性监管效果更好，其中企业层面的道德风险机制贡献了大部分价值。
Abstract We evaluate the efficiency of dynamic linked environmental regulation. Linked regulation allows inspectors who uncover violations at one plant to increase future enforcement at other plants that share a common owner. When compliance costs are correlated, regulators can then target scarce enforcement resources towards bad actors without inspecting everyone. We develop an empirical framework of dynamic moral hazard under linked regulation that allows for large portfolios of plants and for choices to be interdependent within the portfolio of plants and across time. Using the framework we evaluate a linked regulation scheme in Texas and find that linked regulation performs substantially better than both unlinked regulation and untargeted regulation. We test two alternative theoretical mechanisms that underpin the benefit—a “firm-wide moral hazard mechanism” and a “correlated targeting mechanism”—and find that a large share of the value of linked regulation is due to the former.