PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Allen Blackman
AU  - Sarah Darley
AU  - Thomas P. Lyon
AU  - Kris Wernstedt
TI  - What Drives Participation in State Voluntary Cleanup Programs? Evidence from Oregon
AID  - 10.3368/le.86.4.785
DP  - 2010 Nov 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 785--799
VI  - 86
IP  - 4
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/86/4/785.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/86/4/785.full
SO  - Land Econ2010 Nov 01; 86
AB  - Virtually all U.S. states have now created voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs), offering liability relief and other incentives for responsible parties to remediate contaminated sites. We use a multinomial probit model to analyze participation in Oregon’s two VCPs. In contrast to previous VCP research, we find that these programs attract sites with significant contamination, not just clean ones. Furthermore, we find that regulatory pressure—in particular, the public listing of contaminated sites—drives participation. These findings imply Oregon has been able to spur voluntary remediation via public disclosure, a result that comports with themes in the literature on voluntary environmental regulation. (JEL Q53, Q58)