Noncompliance in Environmental Reporting: Are Violators Ignorant, or Evasive, of the Law?

Abstract

Theory: An increasingly common regulatory tool is one that delegates the duty to provide information to the regulated entities, creating new problems in principalagency models of regulation. Hypotheses: Failure to comply with regulations mandating information provision is as much due to ignorance of reporting requirements as to willful evasion. Methods: A modified detection controlled estimation model for coverage, violation, and detection of facility compliance with the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, estimated for facilities in Minnesota in 1991. Results: Violation is better understood by those variables associated with the likelihood that the firm is ignorant of TRI reporting requirements, than by those associated with evasion. Firms in violation tend to be small facilities, releasing or transferring small amounts of toxins to the environment.