The TRI data have generated growing activity in at least one sector of the economy – academia. Scholars use the information to examine how information provision may affect polluter behavior. Through statistical studies, they explore how investors, residents, reporters, and regulators may learn from toxics information. Researchers have drawn on the TRI to analyze questions such as why companies engage in voluntary pollution reduction and why firms may fail to report their emissions or provide accurate estimates. Nonprofits, particularly environmental groups, have catalogued in case studies the many ways that lower information costs translate into increased attention to toxic releases and transfers. The detailed plant-level data in the TRI, coupled with the mapping technology of GIS software, have added increasing information to debates over environmental equity. The example of the TRI has also led to the spread of information provision programs in countries outside the United States. In this chapter, I analyze the evidence to date on what the TRI shows about the impact of information as a regulatory tool.

Changes in Decisionmaking

Statistical tests of the impact of the TRI often use differences across states to investigate how information provision may affect polluter behavior. The studies that use the state as the unit of observation allow researchers to examine how differences in state laws and public pressure may affect toxic releases and transfers.