Title: Management of pollution from decentralised agents by local government

Authors: J.B. Krawczyk, G. Zaccour

Addresses: Faculty of Commerce and Administration, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. GERAD and Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, 3000 Cote-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal H3T 2A7, Canada

Abstract: We consider a managerial economics problem of controlling pollution caused by decentralised economic agents. We build a mathematical model for a local government aiming at the achievement of certain environmental standards within a relatively short time horizon. The government has financial means that might be spent on subsidies to encourage the polluting agents to build abatement facilities. The government also possesses legislative powers to impose environmental levies on the polluting agents for non-compliance with the standards. We solve this problem by computing the agents| reactions to the taxes and subsidies. We use a decision support tool to analyse those reactions and select the government|s instruments leading to a satisfactory reply.

Keywords: computational economics; decision support tool; government-agent interactions; pollution; reaction function; satisfactory solution.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.1999.002300

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 1999 Vol.12 No.2/3, pp.343-357

Published online: 15 Aug 2003 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article