Evaluating an Environmental Right: Information Disclosure, Public Comment, and Government Decision Making in Ontario B. James Deaton, 1 Anastasia M. Lintner 2 and Donna R. Harrington 3 1 Assistant Professor, Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Ontario Agricultural College, 321 J.D. MacLachlan Building, University of Guelph, Ontario (corresponding author: phone: 519-824-4120, ext. 52765; fax: 519-767-1510; e-mail: bdeaton@uoguelph.ca). 2 Adjunct Professor, Economics, College of Management and Economics, 723 MacKinnon Building, University of Guelph, Ontario (phone: 519-824-4120, ext. 53898; fax: 519-763-8497; e-mail: lintner@uoguelph.ca). 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Vermont, 94 University Place, Burlington, VT 05405 (phone: 802-656-0964; fax: 802-656-8405; e-mail: djramire@uvm.edu). In 1993, the Ontario government enacted the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR). The EBR guarantees residents of the province, among other things, the right to comment on permit requests to take water and to discharge into the air and a guarantee that these comments are taken into account in the decision to approve or deny a permit. We model the firm’s decision to request a permit, a resident’s decision to provide public comment, and the government’s decision to approve or deny permit requests to use water or air. Our examination of 1,000 government decisions regarding permit requests leads to two key findings: (1) few permit requests receive any public comment; and (2) to the extent that the public does comment, we find no empirical evidence that comments affect the likelihood that the government will deny a permit request. Our theoretical model anticipates the first result: there are few comments observed for permit applications, because each individual has an incentive to undercontribute to the provision of a public good. The second result did not support the theoretical argument we advance: government, acting to maximize social welfare, takes public concern as a signal of environmental damage. En 1993, le gouvernement de l’Ontario a ´ edict´ e la Charte des droits environnementaux (CDE). La CDE garantit aux r´ esidents de la province, entre autres, le droit de faire des observations sur les demandes de permis pour puiser l’eau et rejeter des quantit´ es limit´ ees de substances polluantes dans l’air, et garantit aussi que ces observations seront prises en consid´ eration dans la d´ ecision d’accorder ou de refuser un permis. Nous avons mod´ elis´ e la d´ ecision d’une entreprise de d´ eposer une demande de permis, la d´ ecision d’un r´ esident de faire des observations et la d´ ecision du gouvernement d’accorder ou de refuser les demandes de permis pour l’usage de l’eau ou de l’air. L’examen de 1000 d´ ecisions du gouvernement concernant des demandes de permis a men´ e` a deux principaux constats: 1. peu de demandes de permis rec ¸oivent des observations du public; 2. lorsque le public soumet des observations, aucune ´ evidence empirique ne laisse supposer que les observations influent sur la probabilit´ e que le gouvernement rejette une demande de permis. Notre mod` ele th´ eorique a anticip´ e le premier constat: les demandes de permis rec ¸oivent peu d’observations parce que chaque individu a un incitatif ` a sous- contribuer ` a la fourniture d’un bien collectif. Le deuxi` eme constat n’a pas appuy´ e notre argument th´ eorique voulant que le gouvernement, qui agit afin de maximiser le bien-ˆ etre collectif, tienne compte des pr´ eoccupations du public comme un signal de dommage environnemental . Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics 56 (2008) 277–294 277