title: Can we buy time? Evaluation of the Swedish government's grant to remediation of contaminated sites.
abstract: The major aim of this paper is to analyze how government funding affects the pace of progress in four states of the remediation process of contaminated sites, from basic risk classification to cleanup. We introduce a methodological framework that takes into account the unobserved site-heterogeneity and simultaneously models duration in the different states. The results show that although site-heterogeneity contributes to make remediation a slow process, the third state, from the elaborate risk classification to the cleanup start, is a particular bottleneck. Even if government funding can speed up the process at this state, the effect is minuscule compared to the amounts of funding required. Thus, there is a need for policy to also focus on other barriers to remediation.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Economic Research, Box 3116, SE-103 62 Stockholm, Sweden. maria.vredin-johansson@konj.se
authors.forename: Maria Vredin
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Forslund
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Samakovlis
mesh_terms: D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods; D005380:Financing, Government; D006256:Hazardous Waste / Q000191:economics; D011640:Public Policy; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013548:Sweden
chemical_list: D006256:Hazardous Waste