Abstract
One of the central issues in environmental economics since the 1960s has been the relative efficiency of alternative instruments for pollution control. The traditional theoretical context in which the choice among instruments is examined presumes that polluters can control their emissions deterministically, emissions can be monitored accurately at little or no cost, and the contributions of each polluter to ambient concentrations are known. These assumptions are not usually characteristic of nonpoint pollution problems.1 The fundamental characteristic of nonpoint pollution is that pollutants follow diffuse pathways from their sources to receiving environmental media. In addition, discharges of pollutants or precursors often cannot be observed directly. The nonpoint problem is therefore characterized by considerable uncertainty about the contribution of individual polluters to ambient concentrations. In many instances it may not be possible to identify who is or is not a contributor from a given set of candidates.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Shortle, J.S., Abler, D.G. (1994). Incentives For Nonpoint Pollution Control. In: Dosi, C., Tomasi, T. (eds) Nonpoint Source Pollution Regulation: Issues and Analysis. Economics, Energy and Environment, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8346-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8346-6_6
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