IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-05-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Colombia's Discharge Fee Program: Incentives for Polluters or Regulators?

Author

Listed:
  • Blackman, Allen

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Colombia’s discharge fee system for water effluents is often held up as a model of a well-functioning, economic-incentive pollution control program in a developing country. Yet few objective, up-to-date evaluations of the program have appeared. Based on a variety of primary and secondary evaluative data, this paper finds that that the program has been beset by a number of serious problems including limited implementation in many regions, widespread noncompliance by municipal sewage authorities, and a confused relationship between discharge fees and discharge standards. Nevertheless, in several watersheds, pollution loads dropped significantly after the program was introduced. While proponents claim the incentives that discharge fees created for polluters to cut emissions in a cost-effective manner were responsible for this success, this paper argues that the incentives they created for regulatory authorities to improve permitting, monitoring, and enforcement were at least as important.

Suggested Citation

  • Blackman, Allen, 2005. "Colombia's Discharge Fee Program: Incentives for Polluters or Regulators?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-31, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-05-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-05-31.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Hua & Wheeler, David, 2005. "Financial incentives and endogenous enforcement in China's pollution levy system," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 174-196, January.
    2. Jean-Philippe Barde, 1994. "Economic Instruments in Environmental Policy: Lessons from the OECD Experience and their Relevance to Developing Economies," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 92, OECD Publishing.
    3. Bohm, Peter & Russell, Clifford S., 1985. "Comparative analysis of alternative policy instruments," Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics, in: A. V. Kneese† & J. L. Sweeney (ed.), Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 395-460, Elsevier.
    4. Lyon, Randolph M., 1989. "Transferable discharge permit systems and environmental management in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(8), pages 1299-1312, August.
    5. Sarah West & Ann Wolverton, 2003. "Market-Based Policies for Pollution Control in Latin America," NCEE Working Paper Series 200301, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Mar 2003.
    6. Baumol, William J, 1972. "On Taxation and the Control of Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 307-322, June.
    7. Blackman, Allen & Harrington, Winston, 1999. "The Use of Economic Incentives in Developing Countries: Lessons from International Experience with Industrial Air Pollution," RFF Working Paper Series dp-99-39, Resources for the Future.
    8. Randall Bluffstone & Bruce A. Larson (ed.), 1997. "Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1123.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Allen Blackman, 2010. "Alternative Pollution Control Policies in Developing Countries," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(2), pages 234-253, Summer.
    2. Blackman, Allen, 2009. "Alternative Pollution Control Policies in Developing Countries: Informal, Informational, and Voluntary," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-10, Resources for the Future.
    3. Maria Angeles O. Catelo, 2007. "Impact Evaluation of the Environmental User Fee System: A Stakeholder Perspective," EEPSEA Special and Technical Paper tp200707t2, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), revised Jul 2007.
    4. Caffera, Marcelo, 2011. "The use of economic instruments for pollution control in Latin America: lessons for future policy design," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 247-273, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clifford S. Russell & Philip T. Powell, 1996. "Choosing Environmental Policy Tools: Theoretical Cautions and Practical Considerations," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 25258, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    3. Russell, Clifford S. & Powell, Philip T., 1996. "Choosing Environmental Policy Tools: Theoretical Cautions and Practical Considerations," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6219, Inter-American Development Bank.
    4. Blackman, Allen & Mathis, Mitchell & Nelson, Peter, 2001. "The Greening of Development Economics: A Survey," Discussion Papers 10662, Resources for the Future.
    5. Olmstead, Sheila & Richardson, Nathan, 2014. "Managing the Risks of Shale Gas Development Using Innovative Legal and Regulatory Approaches," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-15, Resources for the Future.
    6. Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Experience with market-based environmental policy instruments," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 355-435, Elsevier.
    7. Lanoie, Paul & Laplante, Benoît & Tanguay, Georges A., 1994. "La firme et l’environnement," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 70(2), pages 97-111, juin.
    8. Matthieu Glachant, 1995. "Les accords volontaires dans la politique environnementale : une mise en perspective de leur nature et de leur efficacité," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 117(1), pages 49-59.
    9. Frans P. Vries & Nick Hanley, 2016. "Incentive-Based Policy Design for Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation: A Review," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(4), pages 687-702, April.
    10. Coria, Jessica & Sterner, Thomas, 2008. "Tradable Permits in Developing Countries: Evidence from Air Pollution in Santiago, Chile," RFF Working Paper Series dp-08-51, Resources for the Future.
    11. Don Fullerton & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2002. "Environmental Controls, Scarcity Rents, and Pre-existing Distortions," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 26, pages 504-522, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Stavins, Robert, 2001. "Lessons From the American Experiment With Market-Based Environmental Policies," RFF Working Paper Series dp-01-53, Resources for the Future.
    13. Jonathan Colmer & Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union emissions trading scheme," CEP Discussion Papers dp1728, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Bonacina, Monica & Gulli`, Francesco, 2007. "Electricity pricing under "carbon emissions trading": A dominant firm with competitive fringe model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 4200-4220, August.
    15. YingHua He & Thierry Magnac, 2022. "Application Costs and Congestion in Matching Markets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(648), pages 2918-2950.
    16. Jayson Lusk, 2011. "The market for animal welfare," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(4), pages 561-575, December.
    17. Marcelo Caffera & Juan Dubra, 2005. "Getting Polluters to Tell the Truth," Microeconomics 0504008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Na Zhang & Jinqian Deng & Fayyaz Ahmad & Muhammad Umar Draz & Nabila Abid, 2023. "The dynamic association between public environmental demands, government environmental governance, and green technology innovation in China: evidence from panel VAR model," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(9), pages 9851-9875, September.
    19. Petrick, Martin, 2004. "Governing Structural Change And Externalities In Agriculture: Toward A Normative Institutional Economics Of Rural Development," IAMO Discussion Papers 14878, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    20. Arguedas, Carmen & Rousseau, Sandra, 2009. "A note on the complementarity of uniform emission standards and monitoring strategies," Working Papers 2009/12, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    environment; economic incentive; market based instrument; discharge fees; water pollution; Latin America; Colombia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-05-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.