1998
DOI: 10.1257/jep.12.3.69
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What Can We Learn from the Grand Policy Experiment? Lessons from SO2 Allowance Trading

Abstract: The most ambitious application ever attempted of a market-based approach to environmental protection has been for the control of acid rain under the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, which established a sulfur dioxide allowance trading program. This essay identifies lessons that can be learned from this grand experiment in economically oriented environmental policy. The author examines positive political economy lessons, asking why this system was adopted from acid-rain control in 1990, and he considers normat… Show more

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Cited by 597 publications
(269 citation statements)
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References 16 publications
(9 reference statements)
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“…The success of tradable pollution permit programs at meeting air quality standards for regional air pollutants at minimum cost has encourage policy makers and academics to find ways of creating marketable instruments that can be readily applied to land uses (see e.g., Stavins, 1998). Limits do exist, however, in transferring the idea of the standard tradable air pollution permit policy to control land uses.…”
Section: Concluding Commentmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The success of tradable pollution permit programs at meeting air quality standards for regional air pollutants at minimum cost has encourage policy makers and academics to find ways of creating marketable instruments that can be readily applied to land uses (see e.g., Stavins, 1998). Limits do exist, however, in transferring the idea of the standard tradable air pollution permit policy to control land uses.…”
Section: Concluding Commentmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…5 Experience has validated the political importance of this property. For example, in the Senate debate over the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, "bonus allowances" were awarded to electricity generators in Ohio, which were going to incur particularly high costs because of their reliance on high-sulfur coal Stavins 1998); the result was the key support of Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) for the legislation. This pattern should be contrasted with most public policy proposals -environmental or otherwise -for which the normal course of events is that the political machinations that are necessary to develop sufficient legislative support reduce the effectiveness of the policy and/or drive up its costs.…”
Section: The Fundamentals Of Cap-and-tradementioning
confidence: 99%
“…The usual argument to support grandfathering is that while inefficient, is it provides greater political control over the distributional effects of regulation (Stavins 1997).…”
Section: Emissions Permitsmentioning
confidence: 99%