Standards and charges in the control of trade effluent discharges to public sewers in England and Wales

Trade effluent discharges to public sewers in England and Wales are controlled by two policy instruments, a charge and a standard. The charge is probably the nearest thing to a pollution tax currently existing in the United Kingdom. The basis of the charge is explained and the impact of these controls on dischargers examined. The relationship between optimal trade effluent charges and capacity at collective sewage works is developed. An empirical study of the effects of the charges on dischargers is presented.     

An empirical analysis of economic strategies for controlling air pollution

In evaluating current environmental protection policy, economists often note that current regulations are more costly than necessary to meet environmental quality standards. While the a priori case is strong that current regulatory approaches are resulting in higher-than-necessary costs to attain environmental standards, there is relatively little empirical evidence to support this claim. The purpose of this paper is to supply some of the missing evidence by presenting the results of one study that assesses some of the potential savings associated with implementing economic, rather than command-and-control, regulatory approaches to abate one type of air pollution in one region of the country. Specifically, the paper examines the costs of meeting a prospective short-term standard for nitrogen dioxide under a range of alternative emissions control strategies for stationary sources of nitrogen oxide emissions in the Chicago Air Quality Control Region. The alternative strategies that are considered range from those that might result under current regulatory policy to those that economic policy approaches (such as emissions charges or marketable permits) are designed to implement. The analysis shows that the most efficient program of emissions controls may be more than an order of magnitude less costly than current regulatory strategies, and that economic approaches have additional advantages over more conventional regulatory approaches.     

Stochastic pollution, costly sanctions, and optimality of emission permit banking

This paper identifies a new economic motive for pollution regulations that allow polluting firms to bank and borrow emission permits over time. When aggregate pollution is stochastic, an intertemporal permit trading regime can provide firms with efficient incentives for pollution abatement without the need for costly government enforcement actions that would otherwise be required.     

Markets and environmental management with a storable pollutant

Lee [J. Environ. Econ. Manag., in press] investigates possibilities where pollutants may be stored for a period of time and later released into the environment when adverse effects are minimal. The treatment and storage of pollutants before their release into the environment is a crucial part of many abatement programs. Surprisingly, emission charges will not induce optimal abatement when storage is possible. This occurs because the firms' response to the dynamic tax is indeterminant. We suggest alternative controls, whereby rights to emit pollutants are sold competitively and demonstrate that markets provide incentives for the optimal generation-storage-emission of pollution by firms. In deriving this result an important difference between markets and taxes is revealed. With markets there is still indeterminacy at the firm level, but the aggregate response of all firms is dictated by market forces that insure pollution is reduced by some desired amount.     

苏格兰农业非点源污染管理措施评述及启示

农业是苏格兰非点源污染的主要来源,也是苏格兰水体污染的主要原因。介绍了苏格兰农业非点源污染的管理措施,包括:制定治理农业非点源污染的法律法规,并实施财政补贴的经济措施,以激励农场主采取科学的生产方式;通过修建人工湿地、缓冲带等技术措施减少农业非点源污染的影响,从而使河流水质得到提高。最后,探讨了对于苏格兰控制农业非点源污染的管理措施,中国可借鉴的经验,指出中国可从立法、经济措施、技术措施等方面完善农业非点源污染的管理,保护水环境。     

Do environmental regulations disproportionately affect small businesses? Evidence from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey

This paper examines whether the impact of environmental regulations differs by the size of the business. We consider the net effect of statutory, enforcement, and compliance asymmetries by estimating the relationship between plant size and pollution abatement expenditures, using establishment-level data on U.S. manufacturers from the Census Bureau's Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey and from its Annual Survey of Manufactures and Census of Manufactures. We model establishments' pollution abatement operating costs (PAOC) per unit of economic activity as a function of establishment size, industry, state, and year. Our results show that PAOC intensity increases with establishment and firm size.     

Do environmental regulations disproportionately affect small businesses? Evidence from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures survey

This paper examines whether the impact of environmental regulations differs by the size of the business. We consider the net effect of statutory, enforcement, and compliance asymmetries by estimating the relationship between plant size and pollution abatement expenditures, using establishment-level data on U.S. manufacturers from the Census Bureau's Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey and from its Annual Survey of Manufactures and Census of Manufactures. We model establishments' pollution abatement operating costs (PAOC) per unit of economic activity as a function of establishment size, industry, state, and year. Our results show that PAOC intensity increases with establishment and firm size.     

Do new health conditions support mortality–air pollution effects?

Epidemiological research underlying US air quality regulations documents significant associations between measures of fine particles and premature mortality. Recent studies examine potential mechanistic pathways, related to heart and lung functioning, that may contribute to the observed deaths. Our results support these pathophysiological analyses. We examine whether the onset of serious health conditions, consistent with disease pathways, is related to current and long-term exposure to particulate matter and ozone. Associations between air pollution and alternative indicators of health status are also evaluated. The 1996 wave of the Health and Retirement Study is used with a two-step estimator acknowledging limitations in our ability to measure individual exposures. The findings suggest significant current and long-term effects of particulates on new cases of heart attacks and angina, reinforcing the disease pathways identified in epidemiological studies. Long-term air pollution exposure is also a determinant of recently diagnosed chronic lung conditions and reports of shortness of breath.     

Pollution havens and industrial agglomeration

This paper examines the pollution haven hypothesis using a spatial-economy model of two countries and two sectors. The manufacturing sector generates cross-border pollution which reduces cross-sectoral productivity of agricultural goods, and lowers local income. We derive a demand-reducing effect that discourages firms to move to the country with laxer environmental regulations, in the absence of any comparative advantage. Our analysis also demonstrates that manufacturing agglomeration forces can alleviate the pollution-haven effect: a pollution haven may not arise if environmental regulation is slightly more stringent in the larger country.     

Economists' opinions on environmental policy instruments: Analysis of a survey

Incentive instruments (effluent charges) are theoretically expected to be preferred to direct regulations (individual emission ceilings) by university-employed, theoretically inclined politically right-wing, professional economists living in a market-oriented country, ceteris paribus. Public sector employed, politically left-wing, professional economists living in a country with a long tradition of government involvement prefer the regulatory approach, ceteris paribus. These theoretical hypotheses tend to be supported by a bivariate probit analysis based on a survey of more than 1400 economists in five countries.     

废物最少化是乡镇工业污染防治的首选途径

分析了我国乡镇工业的污染现状、特点和原因以及污染控制现状。通过对废物最少化的简介和乡镇工业实施废物最少化的可行性分析,以及对我国有关废物最少化法规、政策的分析等,充分证明废物最少化是乡镇工业污染控制的首选途径。     

Optimal Institutional Arrangements for Transboundary Pollutants in a Second-Best World: Evidence from a Differential Game with Asymmetric Players

This paper uses a dynamic model with asymmetric players to explore the question: In a second-best world, should environmental regulations for transboundary pollutants be carried out locally or centrally? We find that combined payoffs are larger with decentralized control if payoffs are sufficiently heterogeneous and initial pollution stocks are sufficiently small. This result is obtained because the central authority applies one shadow price to pollution (i.e., it uses uniform standards), whereas local authorities use different shadow prices, and therefore different standards.     

The effect of competition on toxic pollution releases

We examine how competition affects toxic industrial releases, using five years of data from thousands of facilities across hundreds of industries. Our main result indicates that competition reduces toxic releases at the facility level. On average, each percentage-point reduction in the Herfindahl Index (HHI) results in a nearly two-percent reduction in a facility׳s toxic releases. At the same time, we find no evidence that competition increases aggregate pollution. Further analysis sheds some light on the mechanisms through which firms reduce pollution releases due to increased competition. In particular, we find suggestive evidence that this relationship is due to both reduced output and increases in abatement. We find no evidence that our result is driven by: consumer aversion to pollution, regulations changing with competition, or technologies introduced by new firms. Taken together, our results indicate that competition may be good, at least for public health in areas near polluting facilities, and fail to provide support for the hypothesis that competition leads to more socially undesirable behavior.     

When do environmental regulations backfire? Onsite industrial electricity generation,energy efficiency and policy instruments

More than half of all energy produced by electric utilities is lost in the form of waste heat. However, when manufacturing facilities choose to produce their own electricity, this waste heat is captured by Combined Heating and Power (CHP) technologies and used in the production process. As a result, manufacturers' pollution footprint can be dramatically reduced by choosing to produce electricity onsite rather than purchasing it from a utility. This paper uses Census microdata to study manufacturers’ decision to produce electricity onsite and examines how plants adjust onsite generation when they are subject to environmental regulations. Environmental regulations will backfire if they cause manufacturers to produce less electricity onsite and shift to electricity from less efficient, offsite electric utilities. We find that manufacturing plants subject to NOx command-and-control regulations decrease onsite electricity generation, increase electricity purchases from off-site utilities and see declines in their energy efficiency. However, manufacturers subject to cap-and-trade see no decline in onsite generation and experience improvements in energy efficiency. These findings demonstrate the importance of instrument selection and identify a new pathway through which emissions leakage may occur.     

System engineering for water pollution control at the watershed level in China

The present water pollution situation at watershed level in China has been systematically analyzed. The causes of water pollution are attributed to the extensive economic developmental pattern, poor wastewater treatment, and a lack of nonpoint pollution control. The problems of water pollution control at watershed level include a lack of thought and approach, developmental delay in the environmental standard system, an inadequate monitoring ability, and an inefficient implementation of laws and regulations. From 2006 to 2020, water pollution control and governance will be a national key specific project of science and technology in China. The strategies of this project include establishing a water pollution control system at watershed level, orienting a healthy aquatic ecosystem, conducting risk management, and using comprehensive methods. The goal is to establish and complete a technological system of pollution control and management in three five-year phases. The main tasks are to develop common technologies, management systems, and mechanisms for lake eutrophication control, river pollution control, urban water environmental pollution control, potable water safety, and water environmental management. The bottlenecks of water pollution control and management in China could be systematically removed, and the demonstration of the system engineering approach will be conducted at selected key watersheds.     

The Economics of Pollution Permit Banking in the Context of Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments

This paper presents a model of the collective emission permit banking behavior of electricity-generating units affected by Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. A rigorous treatment of the constraint that pollution permits cannot be borrowed from future allocations is introduced. This approach enables an analysis of the impact of future changes in electricity demand, regulations, and technologies on the present permit price and emissions level. The effect of uncertainty on the banking behavior is also explored.     

日本、韩国的土壤污染防治法及其对我国的借鉴

在东亚地区,日本、韩国的土壤污染防治立法最为活跃,先后制定了专门的土壤污染防治法及其配套法规.本文从立法背景、立法模式、主要内容及制度设置、土壤污染防治的管理体制等方面,对日本、韩国的土壤污染防治立法进行了比较分析.这些立法实践及其施行经验,对我国正在进行的土壤污染防治立法有实际借鉴意义.     

The employment and earnings impacts of the regulation of stationary source air pollution

A model which analyzes the impacts of stationary source air pollution control regulations on the level and distribution of employment and earnings is presented. The model is an interindustry production model with endogenous price and wage determination. Consumer demand responses of households are determined by applying elasticity estimates to price and earnings changes. The model is applied to analyze the restrictions on levels of permissible emissions from stationary sources set by the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments. The significant results found are (1) the policy has a dampening effect on the economy and (2) the expenditure, earnings, and disposable earning impacts are uniformly regressive.     

Transferable discharge permits and economic efficiency: The fox river

Recent emphasis on reforms of environmental regulation has led to suggestions for strategies which maintain environmental standards but allow the needed flexibility and cost effectiveness. The transferable discharge permit (TDP) is one such strategy for water pollution control recently adopted in Wisconsin. In this article, the potential for substantial cost savings from trading TDPs is demonstrated using data on the Fox River in Wisconsin. A simulation model of water quality (Qual-III) and a linear programming model of abatement costs determine the optimum pattern of discharge. Reaching that optimum from proposed pollution abatement orders is shown to be feasible. Varying conditions of flow and temperature can be accommodated using trade coefficients which can be accurately estimated through interpolation. The calculations demonstrate the value and feasibility of flexible regulations governing water pollution abatement.     

Pollution and Capital Markets in Developing Countries

It is said that firms in developing countries do not have incentives to invest in pollution control because of weak implementation of environmental regulations. This argument assumes that the regulator is the only agent that can create incentives for pollution control, and ignores that capital markets, if properly informed, may provide the appropriate financial and reputational incentives. We show that capital markets in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines do react to announcements of environmental events, such as those of superior environmental performance or citizens' complaints. A policy implication is that environmental regulators in developing countries may explicitly harness those market forces by introducing structured programs of information release pertaining to firms' environmental performance: public disclosure mechanisms in developing countries may be a useful model to consider given limited government enforcement resources.