Justice for All? A Cross‐Time Analysis of Toxics Release Inventory Facility Location

This paper contributes to the environmental justice literature by addressing several outstanding issues in a single study. Using a cross‐time data set that allows us to control for the prevalent “chicken‐and‐egg” or “which‐came‐first” problem, we analyze the relative importance of poverty and race/ethnicity in an analysis that includes economic costs, potential legal costs, and potential collective action. Because the most appropriate functional form is not obvious, we use several methods, including Tobit, Poisson, and ordinary least squares, on different forms of the dependent variable. In every case, controlling for the population present at the time of disamenity location and controlling the other factors mentioned, we find evidence of disproportionate collocation based on race/ethnicity, but not on poverty alone. We also find that the potential for collective action decreases the likelihood of receipt of the studied disamenities.