Facility participation in voluntary pollution prevention programs and the role of community characteristics: Evidence from the 33/50 program

This dissertation examines participation in the 33/50 program, the EPA's first voluntary pollution prevention program, and the effect of participation on the emissions of the 17 program chemicals. I present the analyses at a firm and at a facility level. My dataset includes publicly traded firms invited to participate at all stages of the program. The dataset for the facility analysis includes facilities that belong to firms invited in the first two rounds of invitations. My results validate some of the results of the existing literature on firm participation in the 33/50 program. I validate that larger firms that sell to final consumers, firms listed as potentially responsible parties for Superfund sites, and firms invited first to participate had higher participation rates. I further find that community characteristics in general influence facility participation in the 33/50 program and that the probability of participation increases with median household income in the zip code area in which a facility is located. However, toxicity weighted emissions do not influence participation in the program. This suggests that the firms that emitted a larger volume of chemicals that pose risk to human health were not more likely to participate. Finally, unlike the existing literature, I do not find that participation in the program led to a statistically significant decline in the aggregate or the toxicity weighted emissions of the program chemicals.