Centralized versus Decentralized Cleanup of River Water Pollution: An Application to the Ganges
Amitrajeet A. Batabyal,
Hamid Beladi
Abstract:We exploit the public good attributes of Ganges water pollution cleanup and theoretically analyze an aggregate economy of two cities—Kanpur and Varanasi—through which the Ganges flows. Our specific objective is to study whether water pollution cleanup in these two cities ought to be provided in a centralized or in a decentralized manner. We first determine the efficient cleanup amounts that maximize the aggregate surplus from making the Ganges cleaner in the two cities. Second, we compute the optimal amount of… Show more
We think of the cleanup of water pollution in the Ganges river in India as a local public good and ask whether this cleanup ought to be decentralized or centralized. We depart from the existing literature on this subject in two important ways. First, we allow the heterogeneous spillovers from cleaning up water pollution to be positive or negative. Second, we focus on water pollution cleanup in three cities---Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi---through which the Ganges flows.Our model sheds light on two broad issues. First, we characterize efficient water pollution cleanup in the three cities, we describe how much water pollution is cleaned up under decentralization, we describe the set of cleanup amounts under decentralization, and we discuss why pollution cleanup under decentralization is unlikely to be efficient. Second, we focus on centralization. We derive the tax paid by the inhabitants of the three cities for pollution cleanup, the benefit to a city inhabitant from water pollution cleanup, how majority voting determines how much pollution is cleaned up when the spillovers from cleanup are uniform, and finally, we compare the amounts of pollution cleaned up with majority voting with the efficient pollution cleanup amounts.
We think of the cleanup of water pollution in the Ganges river in India as a local public good and ask whether this cleanup ought to be decentralized or centralized. We depart from the existing literature on this subject in two important ways. First, we allow the heterogeneous spillovers from cleaning up water pollution to be positive or negative. Second, we focus on water pollution cleanup in three cities---Kanpur, Prayagraj, Varanasi---through which the Ganges flows.Our model sheds light on two broad issues. First, we characterize efficient water pollution cleanup in the three cities, we describe how much water pollution is cleaned up under decentralization, we describe the set of cleanup amounts under decentralization, and we discuss why pollution cleanup under decentralization is unlikely to be efficient. Second, we focus on centralization. We derive the tax paid by the inhabitants of the three cities for pollution cleanup, the benefit to a city inhabitant from water pollution cleanup, how majority voting determines how much pollution is cleaned up when the spillovers from cleanup are uniform, and finally, we compare the amounts of pollution cleaned up with majority voting with the efficient pollution cleanup amounts.
We study how spillovers from water pollution cleanup in the Ganges affect social welfare in an aggregate economy consisting of Kanpur and Varanasi, two cities through which this river flows. We view pollution cleanup in both cities as a local public good and point out that, if Kanpur cleans up pollution in the Ganges, then Varanasi obtains some spillover benefit and vice versa. In this setting, we first solve for the Nash equilibrium amounts of pollution cleanup in the two cities when decisions about how much pollution to clean up are made simultaneously; next, we determine the equilibrium welfare levels in each city. Second, on the assumption that decisions about how much pollution to clean up are centralized, we compute the amounts of pollution cleanup that maximize aggregate welfare. Finally, we describe an intercity transfer scheme that leads each city to choose noncooperatively in a Nash equilibrium the same pollution cleanup amounts as those that arise when aggregate welfare is maximized.
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