Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Is Voluntary Disclosure a Signal of Effective Self-Policing?

M. Toffel, Jodi L. Short
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引用次数: 14

Abstract

As regulators increasingly embrace cooperative approaches to governance, voluntary public-private partnerships and self-regulation programs have proliferated. However, because few have been subjected to robust evaluation, little is known about whether these innovative approaches are achieving their objectives and enhancing regulatory effectiveness. In the context of a federal government program that encourages companies to voluntarily self-police and self-disclose regulatory violations, we examine how participation affects the behaviors of regulators and regulated facilities. We find that on average, facilities that committed to self-police experienced a decline in abnormal events resulting in toxic pollution, and that regulators reduced their scrutiny over self-policing facilities. Upon closer examination, we find strong evidence of these effects among facilities with clean past compliance records, but find no such evidence of among facilities with more problematic compliance histories. These findings support the theoretical promise of meaningful self-policing practices and suggest that voluntary disclosure can serve as a reliable signal of future compliance—but only among a subset of facilities.
清洁和清理:自愿披露是有效自我监管的信号吗?
随着监管机构越来越多地采用合作方式进行治理,自愿公私伙伴关系和自我监管项目激增。然而,由于很少有人接受过强有力的评估,因此人们对这些创新方法是否实现了其目标并提高了监管效率知之甚少。在联邦政府鼓励公司自愿自我监督和自我披露违规行为的项目背景下,我们研究了参与如何影响监管机构和受监管机构的行为。我们发现,平均而言,致力于自我管理的设施在导致有毒污染的异常事件中有所下降,监管机构减少了对自我管理设施的审查。经过更仔细的检查,我们在过去合规记录干净的设施中发现了这些影响的有力证据,但在合规历史更有问题的设施中没有发现此类证据。这些发现支持了有意义的自我监管实践的理论承诺,并表明自愿披露可以作为未来合规的可靠信号——但仅适用于一小部分设施。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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