What Drives Voluntary Eco-Certification in Mexico?
26 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2010
Date Written: April 8, 2010
Abstract
Advocates claim that voluntary programs can help shore up poorly performing command-and-control environmental regulation in developing countries. Although literature on this issue is quite thin, research on voluntary environmental programs in industrialized countries suggests that they are often ineffective because they mainly attract relatively clean plants free-riding on prior pollution control investments. We use plant-level data on some 59,000 facilities to identify the drivers of participation in the ISO 14001 certification program in Mexico. We find that regulatory fines spur certification: on average, a fine roughly doubles the likelihood of certification for three years. Hence, the program attracts dirty firms and at least has the potential to improve environmental performance. We also find that plants that sold their goods in overseas markets, used imported inputs, were relatively large, and were in certain sectors and states were more likely to be certified.
Keywords: voluntary environmental regulation, duration analysis, Mexico
JEL Classification: Q56, Q58, O13, O54, C41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Register to save articles to
your library
Recommended Papers
-
By Nicole Darnall and Daniel Edwards
-
Organizational Responses to Environmental Demands: Opening the Black Box
-
By Joann Carmin, Nicole Darnall, ...
-
Iso 14001: Greening Management Systems
By Nicole Darnall, Deborah Rigling Gallagher, ...
-
Greener and Cleaner? The Signaling Accuracy of U.S. Voluntary Environmental Programs
By Nicole Darnall and Joann Carmin
-
By Jorge E. Rivera and Peter De Leon
-
Is Greener Whiter Yet? The Sustainable Slopes Program after Five Years
By Jorge E. Rivera, Peter De Leon, ...
-
Assessing the Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs: Does Certification Matter?
By Nicole Darnall and Stephen Sides
