The Costs of Water Pollution Regulation in the Pulp and Paper Industry

摘要: This paper studies plant level data on actual and permitted levels of water pollution emissions for the pulp industry. There is widespread substantial overcompliance with relevant regulations: aggregate BOD in 1992 were only 50% amount allowed. Overcompliance appears to imply a zero marginal abatement cost its prevalence therefore has potential substantially change debate over costs regulation. We show instead that plants incurred overcomply. Marginal roughly $13,000/ton 1992. discuss possible explanations costly their implications estimation.