When is Command-and-Control Efficient? Institutions, Technology, and the Comparative Efficiency of Alternative Regulatory Regimes For Environmental Protection

Abstract

The nominal efficiency of a regulatory regime is determined by comparing its social costs and benefits; the regime is nominally efficient if it produces benefits in excess of its costs. Thus, a regulatory regime can be at once nominally efficient and relatively inefficient. A regulatory regime that is nominally efficient in the early days of pollution-control efforts, when increments of environmental quality are relatively cheap, may (but will not necessarily) grow less efficient over time-producing less return on each dollar invested-as increments of environmental quality grow increasingly expensive. A regulatory regime that is more efficient in one institutional and technological setting may be less efficient (or inefficient) in another. In reality, however, this outcome will occur only under certain conditions; specifically, when the regulatory regime as a whole is more efficient. The discussion begins, for the sake of comparison, with a brief review of the "conventional" story of the Clean Air Act's regulatory regime. In addition, in 1987 the EPA wrapped up a small-scale and temporary but highly successful experiment in tradable rights to lead-content in gasoline. Like other institutions in society, those of environmental protection (including the regulatory regime itself) tend to evolve slowly, incrementally, and inconsistently. In large measure, the choice of regulatory regime depends on the goals and concerns of policy-makers.

The choice of pollution control policy instruments in developing countries: arguments, evidence and suggestions

“…Lest this proposal be seen as merely the nattering of eccentric "instrument Luddites", compare it with the analysis by Cole and Grossman, 1999, of pollution control policy in the U.S. Their view is essentially that, whether by conscious design or happy political accident, policy evolved here along similar lines --from instruments that economists found less than desirable, toward applications of EI/MBI --as institutional capabilities grew.…”

Cách tiếp cận thị trường trong bảo vệ môi trường và ứng phó với biến đổi khí hậu: Kinh nghiệm Hoa Kỳ

“…Đặc biệt, chi phí của việc xác định, cũng như thay đổi mức chuẩn thải cho phù hợp với các điều kiện kinh tếxã hội và chi phí giám sát các doanh nghiệp là những gánh nặng rất lớn cho các nhà quản lý. Đây là nhược điểm lớn nhất của cách tiếp cận quản lý này, vốn đã được chỉ ra trong các nghiên cứu tiêu biểu của [4][5][6][7].…”

Australian Food Safety Policy Changes from a “Command and Control” to an “Outcomes-Based” Approach: Reflection on the Effectiveness of Its Implementation

“…This approach encourages organisations to establish processes to monitor, control and replace activities that might be harmful to health and safety, and attempts to create a culture of responsibility for safety within the organisation [21]. Environmental protection has also attempted to move away from command and control to a risk based approach although, in contrast with the occupational health and safety approach, it has been primarily to introduce alternatives such as effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits [22]. …”