IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-11-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Comment on “Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right” by Muller and Mendelsohn

Author

Listed:
  • Fraas, Art

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Lutter, Randall

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

In their recent paper , Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right (henceforth, EPR), Muller and Mendelsohn describe a broader, more appealing concept of efficiency that incorporates information on damages caused by emissions from specific sources: “The science and economics related to pollution control”, they write, “have advanced to the point where regulations can now move from cost-effectiveness to efficiency.” We argue that despite the appeal of the EPR solution, its conclusion that source-specific marginal damage estimates are ready for use in regulations is simply incompatible with the empirical evidence presented in EPR. In particular, we explore the implications of the EPR finding of negative marginal damages from NOx emissions for many heavily populated counties. The associated nonconvexities, we show, imply that the source-specific trading ratios that EPR advocates lead to unattractive outcomes not likely to be efficient. We also discuss how the EPR assumption that the regulators know damages with certainty oversimplifies key aspects of efficient air pollution regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Fraas, Art & Lutter, Randall, 2011. "A Comment on “Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right” by Muller and Mendelsohn," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-36, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-11-36
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-11-36.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:econom:v:39:y:1972:i:154:p:160-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Spencer Banzhaf, H. & Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen, 2004. "Efficient emission fees in the US electricity sector," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 317-341, September.
    3. Repetto, Robert, 1987. "The policy implications of non-convex environmental damages: A smog control case study," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 13-29, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nicholas Z. Muller & Robert Mendelsohn, 2012. "Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 608-612, February.
    2. Art Fraas & Randall Lutter, 2012. "Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 602-607, February.
    3. Ian W.H. Parry, 2005. "Fiscal Interactions and the Costs of Controlling Pollution from Electricity," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 849-869, Winter.
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Evans, David A., 2003. "The Evolution of NOx Control Policy for Coal-Fired Power Plants in the United States," Discussion Papers 10645, Resources for the Future.
    5. Gregory Poe & Richard Bishop, 1999. "Valuing the Incremental Benefits of Groundwater Protection when Exposure Levels are Known," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(3), pages 341-367, April.
    6. Kuosmanen, Timo & Laukkanen, Marita, 2009. "(In)Efficient Management of Interacting Environmental Bads," Discussion Papers 54287, MTT Agrifood Research Finland.
    7. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Mathai, Koshy, 2000. "Optimal CO2 Abatement in the Presence of Induced Technological Change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-38, January.
    8. Palmer, Karen L. & Burtraw, Dallas, 2005. "The Environmental Impacts of Electricity Restructuring: Looking Back and Looking Forward," Discussion Papers 10656, Resources for the Future.
    9. Andrei Bazhanov, 2012. "A Closed-Form Solution to Stollery’s Problem with Damage in Utility," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 365-386, April.
    10. Cropper, Maureen & Gamkhar, Shama & Malik, Kabir & Limonov, Alex & Partridge, Ian, 2012. "The Health Effects of Coal Electricity Generation in India," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-25, Resources for the Future.
    11. Wolfgang,O., 2001. "Cost-effective abatement of ground-level ozone in cities and for larger regions : implications of non-monotonicity," Memorandum 30/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    12. Palmer, Karen & Burtraw, Dallas, 2005. "Cost-effectiveness of renewable electricity policies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 873-894, November.
    13. Gautier Luis, 2019. "The Role of Multiple Pollutants and Pollution Intensities in the Policy Reform of Taxes and Standards," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 1-20, July.
    14. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen & Kahn, Danny, 2010. "A symmetric safety valve," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 4921-4932, September.
    15. Burtraw, Dallas & Woerman, Matt, 2013. "Economic ideas for a complex climate policy regime," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 24-31.
    16. Moslener, Ulf & Requate, Till, 2007. "Optimal abatement in dynamic multi-pollutant problems when pollutants can be complements or substitutes," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 2293-2316, July.
    17. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen L., 2013. "Mixing It Up: Power Sector Energy and Regional and Regulatory Climate Policies in the Presence of a Carbon Tax," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-09, Resources for the Future.
    18. Burtraw, Dallas & Palmer, Karen, 2003. "The Paparazzi Take a Look at a Living Legend: The SO2 Cap-and-Trade Program for Power Plants in the United States," RFF Working Paper Series dp-03-15, Resources for the Future.
    19. Shih, Jhih-Shyang & Russell, Armistead G. & McRae, Gregory J., 1998. "An optimization model for photochemical air pollution control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-14, April.
    20. Lawrence H. Goulder & Koshy Mathai, 1998. "Optimal CO2 Abatement in the Presence of Induced Technological Change," NBER Working Papers 6494, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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-11-36. 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.