Much regulation occurs because there is no competitive suppliers of services. This is particularly so in infrastructure industries where it makes sense to have one infrastructure and only one supplier. The electricity industry, the communications industry, roads, water supply are all cases where it makes sense to have one physical infrastructure to deliver [...]
For commodities in scarce supply pricing is the normal solution to demand management. Pricing is already used for demand management of water with the use of tiered water consumption tariffs. Pricing reduces demand but the reduction achieved depends on circumstances. A common figure for estimation purposes is that 10% increase in the [...]
Rewards: A Market-Driven Framework for Government Provision of Public Goods
Author: Kevin Cox and Heather Caufield
The success of Rewards programs such as frequent flyer and buyer schemes or international carbon credit programs have laid down a blueprint that can be readily [...]
Once upon a time there a country who thought that having a well fed population was a sign of prosperity and a well run economy. The Prime Minister was heard to boast on many occasions on the success of his government’s policies particularly as it related to the consumption of fat foods. The more fat [...]
The Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading states
By placing a price on emissions, trading allows market forces to find least cost ways of reducing emissions by providing incentives for firms to reduce emissions where this would be cheapest, while allowing continuation of emissions where they [...]
Robert Neil (”no wasted water in delicate balance of habitats, June 1 p15) argues for the retention of environmental flows policy.
Critics of the regime are not calling for the removal of environmental flows and are not suggesting that stopping environmental flows will solve the current problem.
They are asking that the regime for [...]
Economists are fixated on cap and trade systems to set a price for carbon. That is, someone sets an arbitrary target for carbon emissions then allocates permits that people now trade. While this might work it is not the best most certain solution to the problem. Another solution is to estimate the amount [...]
Economic Assertions for Rewards versus Permits Trading
Increasingly, trading schemes are advocated as the economic tool of choice to allocate public goods efficiently and to alleviate public bads. Two well known schemes are Carbon Permits for reducing greenhouse gases and Water Permits to allocate water. These schemes work by creating artificial commodities to represent [...]
