Flow Control and Rent Capture in Solid Waste Management

摘要

This event study examines the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court's May 1994 ruling that flow-cotrol laws are unconstitutional on the $30 billion a year solid waste industry. Flowcontrol ordinances were enacted ostensibly to help finance the construction of multimillion dollar waste-to-energy facilities by ensuring supplies of solid waste and were challenged in court by waste hauling and landfill firms. Owing to large standard errors, I fail to reject the null hypothesis that the Supreme Court decision did not have significant effects on the expected profits of either hauling-landfill or waste-to-energy firms.