Public disclosure programs that collect and disseminate information about firms' environmental performance are increasingly popular in both developed and developing countries. Yet little is known about whether they actually improve environmental performance, particularly in the latter setting....

This article reviews the economic literature on voluntary approaches to environmental regulation. In the last few years there has been a rapid growth in the use of voluntary actions and programs to address environmental concerns. These approaches can be placed into three general categories: (1)...

Nearly every state in the United States has developed one or more voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs) to support an alternative approach to cleanup of contaminated sites. Thousands of sites have entered into these programs. Yet, despite the ubiquity of VCPs and the number of enrolled properties,...