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Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right

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Author Info

  • Nicholas Z. Muller
  • Robert Mendelsohn

Abstract

This paper argues for efficient environmental regulations that equate the marginal damage of pollution to marginal abatement costs across space. The paper estimates the source-specific marginal damages of air pollution and calculates the welfare gain from making the current sulfur dioxide allowance trading program for power plants more efficient. The savings from using trading ratios based on marginal damages are between $310 and $940 million per year. The potential savings from setting aggregate emissions efficiently and from including more sources of air pollution are many times higher. (JEL H23, Q53, Q58)

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 99 (2009)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 1714-39

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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:99:y:2009:i:5:p:1714-39

Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.5.1714
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References

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  1. M. L. Weitzman, 1973. "Prices vs. Quantities," Working papers 106, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  2. Krupnick, Alan J. & Oates, Wallace E. & Van De Verg, Eric, 1983. "On marketable air-pollution permits: The case for a system of pollution offsets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 233-247, September.
  3. Thomas H. Tietenberg, 1980. "Transferable Discharge Permits and the Control of Stationary Source Air Pollution: A Survey and Synthesis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(4), pages 391-416.
  4. Carlson, Curtis & Burtraw, Dallas & Cropper, Maureen & Palmer, Karen L., 1998. "Sulfur dioxide control by electric utilities : what are the gains from trade?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1966, The World Bank.
  5. W. Kip Viscusi & Joseph E. Aldy, 2003. "The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World," NBER Working Papers 9487, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Janusz R. Mrozek & Laura O. Taylor, 2002. "What determines the value of life? a meta-analysis," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 253-270.
  7. Montgomery, W. David, 1972. "Markets in licenses and efficient pollution control programs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 395-418, December.
  8. Freeman, Jody & Kolstad, Charles D., 2006. "Moving to Markets in Environmental Regulation: Lessons from Twenty Years of Experience," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195189650, July.
  9. Stavins Robert N., 1995. "Transaction Costs and Tradeable Permits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 133-148, September.
  10. Ger Klaassen & Finn Førsund & Markus Amann, 1994. "Emission trading in Europe with an exchange rate," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(4), pages 305-330, August.
  11. R. Scott Farrow & Martin T. Schultz & Pinar Celikkol & George L. Van Houtven, 2005. "Pollution Trading in Water Quality Limited Areas: Use of Benefits Assessment and Cost-Effective Trading Ratios," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(2).
  12. Atkinson, Scott E. & Tietenberg, T. H., 1982. "The empirical properties of two classes of designs for transferable discharge permit markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 101-121, June.
  13. Mendelsohn, Robert, 1980. "An economic analysis of air pollution from coal-fired power plants," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 30-43, March.
  14. Mendelsohn, Robert, 1984. "Endogenous technical change and environmental regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 202-207, September.
  15. Richard Schmalensee & Paul L. Joskow & A. Denny Ellerman & Juan Pablo Montero & Elizabeth M. Bailey, 1998. "An Interim Evaluation of Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Trading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 53-68, Summer.
  16. Muller, Nicholas Z. & Mendelsohn, Robert, 2007. "Measuring the damages of air pollution in the United States," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-14, July.
  17. Mendelsohn, Robert, 1986. "Regulating heterogeneous emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 301-312, December.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Schmalensee, Richard & Stavins, Robert N., 2012. "The SO2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment," Working Paper Series rwp12-030, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  2. Britt Groosman & Nicholas Muller & Erin O’Neill-Toy, 2011. "The Ancillary Benefits from Climate Policy in the United States," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(4), pages 585-603, December.
  3. Cropper, Maureen & Gamkhar, Shama & Malik, Kabir & Limonov, Alex & Partridge, Ian, 2012. "The Health Effects of Coal Electricity Generation in India," Discussion Papers dp-12-25, Resources For the Future.
  4. Nicholas Z Muller, 2012. "Towards the Measurement of Net Economic Welfare: Inter-Temporal Environmental Accounting in the U.S. Economy," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Economic Sustainability and Progress National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Pogany, Peter, 2010. "What’s wrong with the world? Rationality! A critique of economic anthropology in the spirit of Jean Gebser," MPRA Paper 26458, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  6. Cohan, Daniel S. & Douglass, Catherine, 2011. "Potential emissions reductions from grandfathered coal power plants in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 4816-4822, September.

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