Regulations versus the market The US economist Tom Tietenberg argued strongly in favour of cost savings via using market mechanisms for pollution control (Tietenberg, 2009). He found the costs of air...

Regulations versus the market

The US economist Tom Tietenberg argued strongly in favour of cost savings via using market mechanisms for pollution control (Tietenberg, 2009). He found the costs of air pollution control in various locations in the USA to be between 1.07 and 22 times higher using uniform command and control regulations as compared to using market mechanisms to minimise abatement costs. He concluded that, as an average across his location-specific studies, market mechanisms could achieve the same environmental quality as regulation at only one-sixth of the cost.