The Economic Theory of Pollution Control - Kalamazoo College污染控制的经济理论的卡拉马祖大学.ppt

The Economic Theory of Pollution Control The Optimal Level of Pollution Minimization of Waste Disposal Cost From a purely economic perspective, the management of environmental quality or pollution control is easily understood if the problem is viewed as minimizing total waste disposal costs. Minimize: TWDC = TPCC + TPDC continue... In minimizing this cost, the underlying economic logic is this. A dollar’s worth of investment (expenditure) on pollution control technology will make sense if, and only if, society is expected to be compensated by the benefits to be realized from the avoidance of environmental damage that worth’s more than a dollar. Pollution Control (Abatement) Costs and Their Properties Pollution control costs represent direct monetary expenditures by society for the purpose of procuring resources to improve environmental quality or to control pollution. Examples are: Sewage treatment facilities, smoke stacks, soundproof walls and catalytic converters on passengers cars. continue... In general, we would expect the marginal pollution control cost to increase with increased environmental quality or cleanup activities. This is because incrementally higher levels of environmental quality require investments in technologies that are increasingly costly. continue... Exogenous factors that determines the position of any marginal control cost curve are: Technology of pollution control Input switching residual recycling production technology continue... Since pollution control costs are explicit or out-of-pocket expenditures, it is often assumed that no apparent market distortion occurs as a result of a third party effect--externality. Pollution Damage Costs and their Salient Properties Pollution damage costs represent the total monetary value of all the various damages resulting from the discharge of untreated waste into the environment. continue... In general, pollution damage costs are identified in terms of the losses of or damage to plants and animals