Under most U.S. environmental laws and some health and safety laws, states may apply to implement and enforce the law, through a process known as authorization or primacy. The paper presents a simple model of the strategic interaction between the federal and state governments with such voluntary...

Many arguments about decentralization in public goods provision have testable implications for the relationship between decentralization and the level and spatial variability of public goods. This paper explores the empirical relationship between decentralization and environmental public good,...

Under most federal environmental laws and some health and safety laws, states may apply for quot;primacy,quot; that is, authority to implement and enforce federal law, through a process known as quot;authorization.quot; Some observers fear that states use authorization to adopt more lax policies...

Under most federal environmental laws and some health and safety laws, states may apply for "primacy," that is, authority to implement and enforce federal law, through a process known as "authorization." Some observers fear that states use authorization to adopt more lax policies in a regulatory...

This paper explores the empirical effects of decentralization on environmental quality by studying water pollution in rivers around the world. It examines the level of pollution and variation in pollution across jurisdictions within a country, for both a local and a regional pollutant. Federal...

Under most U.S. environmental regulations, the federal government shares responsibility with the states by authorizing them to implement and enforce federal policies. Authorization provides states with considerable discretion over the effects of regulation and is perhaps the most significant...