The Berkeley Electronic Press dedicated a recent issue to the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, i.e. do different jurisdictions try to lower their environmental standards to attract industry? There are a number of interesting papers available.

One of the more interesting papers deals with New Source Review (NSR) under the Clean Air Act, which has been in the news recently with a major D.C. Circuit opinion that upheld changes made by the Bush Administration to deal with problems involving NSR --- the exact same sort of problems addressed in this particular paper. The paper's authors explain, "In our examination of more than 2500 and 2200 plant-level modification decisions and closures, respectively, we find empirical evidence suggesting that NSR retards modification rates, while doing little to hasten the closure of existing dirty plants."

UPDATE: The authors conclude, "In sum, then, the finding that NSR deterred plant modifications that could have led to reduced emissions, in combination with the nonexistent effects of NSR on pollution-intensive plant closures, suggests the possibility that in the short run the NSR stipulation for existing manufacturing plants has led to more, rather than less, pollution." [authors' emphasis, not mine.]