Toxic Release Inventories and Green Consumerism: Empirical Evidence from Canada
نویسندگان
چکیده
We investigate the empirical evidence that firms abate their pollution in response to green consumerism facilitated by dissemination of information through toxic release inventories. Lacking direct observational data on the extent of green consumerism, we construct an indirect method to elicit its effect on pollution abatement. Assuming that environmentally-motivated consumers cannot attribute pollution to individual goods produced by a multi-product firm, but rather reduce their demand across all product lines of the firm, we identify green consumerism through intra-firm inter-plant spillover effects in pollution abatement. We anticipate that such “environmentally-leveraged” companies will reduce emissions by more than non-leveraged companies when they are exposed to consumer markets. We test predictions from a simple partial-equilibrium model with 1993-99 panel data from Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) in conjunction with related census data. We adjust our analysis for the toxicity of pollutants. Our empirical results find indirect evidence of green consumerism. However, we cannot distinguish between the extent to which measured effects can be attributed to actual green purchasing behaviour of consumers or mere anticipation of such behaviour by companies.
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