Decentralization and Pollution Spillovers: Evidence from the Re-drawing of County Borders in Brazil

Lipscomb, Molly; Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq

doi:10.1093/restud/rdw023

Cited by 251 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…In the water context, Sigman (2001Sigman ( , 2005Sigman ( , 2014 has provided extensive evidence that decentralization of environmental responsibilities can be associated with differences in the quality of water bodies, even if these differences should not necessarily be interpreted as a race to the bottom but rather as resulting from differences in preferences. Close to our paper, Lipscomb and Mobarak (2007) show that, in Brazil, pollution significantly increases right before a downstream exit point. The negative outcome is however local as they find no effect on the overall water quality across all locations.…”

Section: Review Of the Literaturesupporting

confidence: 63%

Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy

2016

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This paper investigates the effects of political (mis)alignment on public service delivery when mandates are shared between state and local governments. We analyze sewage treatment policies in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Based on a regression discontinuity design, we establish a causal relationship between political alignment and higher sewage treatment provision.Conceptually, we find that, with uncertain local commitment and weakly enforceable local obligations, shared mandates lead to a moral hazard issue implying service under-provision.When political alignment is an option, our results show that it attenuates such moral hazard effects.

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Section: Review Of the Literaturesupporting

confidence: 63%

Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy

2016

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“…Our paper is closely related to the literature on river pollution (Sigman, 2002(Sigman, , 2005Bernauer and Kuhn, 2010;Lipscomb and Mobarak, 2013). Recognizing the unidirectional externalities in river pollution, Sigman (2002) uses cross-border comparisons to show that pollution levels are higher upstream of national borders in many countries.…”

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confidence: 98%

Polluting thy neighbor: Unintended consequences of China׳s pollution reduction mandates

Cai

Chen

Qing

2016

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

318

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“…1 Coasian bargaining offers one pathway for mitigating such externalities. Due to the absence of binding international law between nation-states, negotiated solutions can be difficult to achieve even when there are only a few actors (Dinar 2006;Lipscomb and Mobarak 2013;Sigman 2005;and Wolf 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Water Pollution Progress at Borders: The Role of Changes in China's Political Promotion Incentives

Kahn

Pei

Zhao

2015

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

265

130

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R iver pollution represents a classic negative externality that spills across political boundaries. The source region generates emissions that pollute the river, but social costs are borne downstream. In cases ranging from Western Europe to China, empirical studies have documented significant free riding along interjurisdictional river boundaries (Cai, Chen, and Qing 2013;Sigman 2002Sigman , 2005and Sandler 2006). 1 Sigman (2002) compares pollution in domestic and international rivers. She finds that stations immediately upstream of international borders have higher levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) than similar stations elsewhere. Gray and Shadbegian (2004) find that near the Canadian-United States border BOD discharges are higher and that fewer inspections take place. Using Toxic Release Inventory data from 1987to 1996, Helland and Whitford (2003 show that facilities' water emissions are higher in counties that border other states. Sigman (2005) finds that free riding gives rise to a 4 percent degradation of water quality downstream of authorized US states. Lipscomb and Mobarak (2013) exploit a Brazilian natural experiment in which county borders are redrawn frequently and consequently changes strategic polluting behavior around borders. They conclude that solutions to cross-boundary spillovers require active regulatory involvement by upper-level governmental officials.

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Decentralization and Pollution Spillovers: Evidence from the Re-drawing of County Borders in Brazil

Cited by 251 publications

References 68 publications

Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy

Shared Mandates, Moral Hazard, and Political (Mis)alignment in a Decentralized Economy

Polluting thy neighbor: Unintended consequences of China׳s pollution reduction mandates

Water Pollution Progress at Borders: The Role of Changes in China's Political Promotion Incentives

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