10.2190/EVYF-H3JC-0E6X-2XFT EVYFH3JC0E6X2XFT 6 Policy Choices For Air Quality Goal Attainment 315 331 20020509 20020509 20020509 20020509 EVYFH3JC0E6X2XFT.pdf http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=EVYFH3JC0E6X2XFT 4 Allen K. Miedema Energy and Environmental Research Division, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina The four major air quality attainment policies—emission control regulations, emission control subsidies, emission charges, and emission rights—are respecifications of air resource property rights. Among these, regulations and subsidies are allocatively and dynamically inefficient. The choice between emission charges and emission rights depends on an empirical assessment of their associated transactions costs, although emission rights appear more promising. The proper evaluation of emission control policies requires better techniques for estimating transactions costs and for assessing the deleterious effects of various specific pollutants. Ultimately, environmental policymakers have to confront the choices of air quality goals, of the final distribution of pollution abatement costs, and of regional variations in air quality as normative political issues, despite substantial inputs of scientific information concerning these issues. S. F. Singer, Future Environmental Needs and Costs, <i>Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 55</i>:11, pp. 948-954, 1974. J. H. Dales, Land, Water, and Ownership, <i>Canadian Journal of Economics, 1</i>:4, pp. 791-804, 1968a. J. H. Dales, <i>Pollution, Property, and Prices</i>, Univ. of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1968b. H. Demsetz, Toward a Theory of Property Rights, <i>American Economic Review, 57</i>:2, pp. 347-359, 1967. H. S. Gordon, The Economics of a Common-Property Resource: the Fishery, <i>Journal of Political Economy</i>, pp. 124-142, April 1954. C. A. Reich, The New Property, <i>Yale Law Journal</i>, pp. 733-787, April 1964. J. E. Krier and W. D. Montgomery, Resource Allocation, Information Cost, and the Form of Government Intervention, <i>Natural Resources Journal, 13</i>:1, pp. 89-105, 1973. W. J. Baumol, On Taxation and the Control of Externalities, <i>American Economic Review, 62</i>:3, pp. 307-322, 1972. T. H. Bingham and A. K. Miedema, <i>Allocative and Distributive Effects of Alternative Air Quality Control Policies</i>, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, N. C., 1974. S. Rose-Ackerman, Effluent Charges: A Critique, <i>Canadian Journal of Economics, 6</i>:4, pp. 512-528, 1973. O. A. Davis and I. K. Morton, Externalities, Information, and Alternative Collective Action, In Joint Economic Committee, 91st Congress, 1st Session, <i>The Analysis and Evaluation of Public Expenditures: the PPB System</i>, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969. F. J. Trelease, Policies for Water Law: Property Rights, Economic Forces and Public Regulation, <i>Natural Resources Journal, 5</i>, pp. 1-48, 1965. W. D. Montgomery, Markets in Licenses and Efficient Pollution Control Programs, <i>Journal of Economic Theory, 5</i>, pp. 395-418, 1972. T. H. Tietenberg, The Design of Property Rights for Air Pollution Control, <i>Public Policy, 22</i>:3, pp. 275-292, 1974. E. J. Mishan, <i>The Costs of Economic Growth</i>, Staples Press, London, 1967.