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 duration model to analyze participation in Oregon's program. In contrast to previous VCP research, we find...

An increasingly popular instrument for solving environmental problems is the "public voluntary agreement (VA)", in which government offers technical assistance and positive publicity to firms that reach certain environmental goals. Prior papers treat such agreements as a superior, low-cost...