Responsibility for enforcing environmental protection laws often falls on both federal and state agencies. We investigate whether enforcement and monitoring taken by the federal agency—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—and enforcement and monitoring actions taken by U.S. state environmental agencies differentially affect the compliance behavior of pollution point sources regulated under the U.S. Clean Water Act. Our results demonstrate that federal inspections are more effective than state inspections, yet state fines are more effective than federal fines, at inducing compliance with Clean Water Act-imposed discharge limits.

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执法联邦制：比较联邦处罚与州处罚的有效性

执行环境保护法的责任通常落在联邦和州机构上。我们调查了联邦机构（美国环境保护署（EPA））采取的强制执行和监视措施以及美国各州环境机构采取的强制执行和监视措施是否对《美国清洁水法》规定的污染点源的合规行为产生了不同影响。我们的结果表明，联邦检查要比州检查更有效，但州罚款要比联邦罚款更有效，以促使其遵守《清洁水法》规定的排放限值。