Meng SUN (Sarah)

Ph.D. Candidate

mengsun@interchange.ubc.ca

C.V.(pdf)

Research Fields:

   Environmental Economics, Political Economy, International Trade

Job Market Paper: "The Determinants of Environmental Policy and Environmental Protection for Sale: Empirical Evidence from the United States" (pdf)

Working Papers:

• Environmental Protection for Sale and Pollution Noncompliance-- Evidence from the United States (Thesis)
  • How Enforcement Policy Affects Firms` Environmental Behavior (Chapter 2)

  Abstract: I take into account the endogeneity of environmental policy resulting from political pressure and revisit the effect of environmental enforcement policy on firms' compliance/noncompliance behavior. A modified Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes (1995) econometric strategy is employed to derive the industry-level empirical specification based on microfoundations of firms' rational behavior. Strong evidence is found that inspection rates reduce violation rates. The deterrent effect could be underestimated if the endogeneity of policy at the industry level is ignored. The calculated elasticities of violation with respect to enforcement policy vary across industries.

  • How Environmental Regulation is Determined in a Political Context (Chapter 3)

  Abstract: This work addresses the issue of what determines the level of environmental political protection. Using Grossman and Helpman's (1994) framework, I show theoretically that the level of protection mimics a Ramsey rule dependent on damage multiplier and elasticity of violation. Empirical regressions show that both of them have effects on the inspection rate that proxies the protection level. In particular, there is a strong complementary effect between damage multiplier and elasticity of violation in determining the inspection rate. The estimated effects are consistent with the prediction for most industries.

  • Determinants of Environmental Political Contribution (Chapter 4)

  Abstract: This work investigates whether firms behave systematically in choosing their levels of environmental political effort. Political contributions presented exclusively for environmental issues are constructed to measure firms' environmental political activity for the first time. For this paper's purposes, damage multiplier and elasticity of violation are considered to be benefit determinants of the political activity, given their effects on enforcement policy in Chapter Three. Moreover, I propose that input shares that affect the stake given certain protection level are also determinants. Empirical evidence is found to confirm the conjectures.

• Environmental Outsourcing, In-house Regulation and New Pollution Abatement Technology Adoption -- Examine the Porter Hypothesis
• Corporate Social Norm and Voluntary Abatement (Joint with Qichun HE)