Modelling the Costs of Environmental Policy

This important new book enhances our understanding of the dynamic interactions between economic activity, economic growth, pollution abatement and environmental policy. It addresses one main policy problem: how can the direct and indirect costs of environmental policy for multiple pollutants be properly assessed in an applied model?

Using an original methodology, the author constructs a multi-sectoral dynamic applied general equilibrium model. This new integrated model greatly improves the empirical analysis of the dynamic reactions of economic agents to pollution control, explicitly taking into account the direct and indirect effects of abatement on the economy and the environment. The author goes on to apply the model to study the costs of various environmental policies including climate change, acidification, eutrophication, smog formation and the dispersion of fine dust. He finds that if environmental policies can be implemented simultaneously and in a cost-effective manner, the economic costs of these policies can be effectively limited through a combination of economic restructuring and adopting technical abatement measures.

Modelling the Costs of Environmental Policy will prove essential and enlightening reading for scholars, students and researchers of environmental and resource economics, environmental policy and economic modelling.

Rob B. Dellink, Environment Directorate, OECD, France