Consider a market with two polluting firms with linear marginal abatement cost curves. Firm B has increasing marginal abatement costs that are everywhere half as high as Firm A’s marginal abatement costs. The maximum amount of pollution that can be tolerated is less than the total these two firms would emit if their pollution was unrestricted. Thus some aggregate amount of abatement is necessary. The pollutant in question is uniformly mixing, so it doesn’t matter which firm cuts back how much, only that between them, they cut back by the required total amount. The environmental agency decides to solve the abatement allocation problem by giving out pollution permits in amounts such that each firm would be obliged to cut back their emissions by an equal amount. Would this be “fair”? Would it be “efficient”
Consider a market with two polluting firms with linear marginal abatement cost
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