The impact of environmental regulations on the industry structure of landfills

Over the past twenty years, the environmental regulation of landfills has become increasingly restrictive both at the federal and state levels. Using a panel dataset of Ohio landfills, we developed a theoretical framework to explain the landfill operators' responses to regulatory actions, and then estimate an empirical model of changes in industry structure. Because not all Ohio counties have landfill operations, we hypothesize that there is self-selection in the location of landfills, which is accounted for with an appropriate econometric model. The study finds that environmental regulations had significant impact both on the location of landfill operations and concentration of the industry during the time period studied.