November 19, 2018 By Seth D. Jaffe
Categories: EPA , Regulation , Enforcement , Cost-Benefit Analysis , Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Being a poor country environmental lawyer, I don't often delve into the academic world. I therefore just recently caught up to the article written last year by my friend Dan Esty. Red Lights to Green Lights: From 20th Century Environmental Regulation to 21st Century Sustainability, is a wonderful synthesis of a lot of work on how to build a better regulatory mousetrap.
The title does not exactly roll off the tongue, so I'll do my best to shorten it. And I can't quite attain the one-word perfection of “plastics,” from The Graduate, but I think I can bring it down to two: “Internalize externalities.”
It's not a new idea, but that doesn't minimize its importance. For blog purposes, I'll highlight just two points Dan makes.
And so I say, there's a great future in internalizing externalities. Think about it.
