A Randomized Experiment of Offsite Compliance Monitoring Activities in Environmental Regulations

Last registered on January 06, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

A Randomized Experiment of Offsite Compliance Monitoring Activities in Environmental Regulations

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0017552

Initial registration date

December 23, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

January 06, 2026, 6:55 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Tihitina Andarge

Affiliation

University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Mary Evans

PI Affiliation

University of Texas at Austin

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PI Name

Paul Ferraro

PI Affiliation

Johns Hopkins University

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Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2026-01-01

End date

2026-12-31

Keywords

Environment & Energy

Additional Keywords

environmental monitoring and enforcement, noninferiority trial

JEL code(s)

Q50, Q58, K32

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

In partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we aim to conduct a pilot experiment to compare offsite desk audits and onsite inspections within the context of the Clean Water Act's National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) wastewater program in Wisconsin. Within inspector-half year blocks, we will randomly assign facilities to receive an offsite desk audit (treatment group) or an onsite inspection (control group). For decision-making, states are interested in knowing if offsite compliance monitoring (OfCM) activities are no worse than onsite inspections in their ability to uncover violations, rather than whether they are better than onsite inspections. This setting lends itself to a non-inferiority randomized controlled trial (RCT) where we test whether offsite desk audits are no worse than onsite inspections by some predetermined margin of acceptable difference, referred to as the noninferiority margin. The noninferiority margin was elicited from our state partner. Over the course of the experiment, inspectors will fill out a standard inspection form for both groups of facilities. At the conclusion of the experiment, we will extract the data from the forms to determine the number of violations, inspection date, inspector, and monitoring type. We will then perform a noninferiority test on the mean number of violations in the two groups. As secondary outcomes, we will also examine the time spent on monitoring and the cost of monitoring.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Andarge, Tihitina, Mary Evans and Paul Ferraro. 2026. "A Randomized Experiment of Offsite Compliance Monitoring Activities in Environmental Regulations." AEA RCT Registry. January 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17552-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2026-01-01

Intervention End Date

2026-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The primary outcome variable is the number of violations.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Our state partner has identified which form responses constitute a violation. We will use those form responses to determine the number of violations uncovered during an offsite desk audit or an onsite inspection.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

The secondary outcome variables include the time spent on monitoring and the cost of monitoring.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

From our state partner, we obtained a list of facilities that meet our inclusion criteria and are due for an inspection between January 1 and August 31, 2026. Each facility already has a designated inspector. Within inspector-half-year blocks, we randomly assign facilities to be monitored via an offsite desk audit or an onsite inspection. For the first half of 2026, between January 1 and June 30, 2026, we performed the randomization for the 66 eligible facilities due for an inspection during that time period. We provided a spreadsheet with the treatment assignments to our state partner. For the second half of 2026, we have to wait until April 2026 to perform the randomization, once our state partner has constructed the full list of eligible facilities for that time period. We expect an additional 60 facilities to be included in the second half of 2026, bringing the total expected number of observations to 126 facilities.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization was performed using the function "block_ra" from the "randomizeR" package in R.

Randomization Unit

Within inspector-half-year blocks, facilities were randomly assigned to receive an offsite desk audit (treatment group) or an onsite inspection (control group).

Was the treatment clustered?