The Importance of Exposure in Evaluating and Designing Environmental Regulations: A Case Study
以1980年美国环保署对顺酐厂苯排放标准的提案为例，说明即使信息有限，成本收益分析也能为决策提供指导，并指出激励型监管比标准更高效，强调监管应关注损害而非排放。
A new study of benzene emissions from maleic anhydride plants - the subject of a standard proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in April, 1980 - illustrates how benefit-cost techniques can provide useful guidance to decision makers, even with limited information, and how incentive-based approaches can provide workable and efficient alternatives to standards. The case study also suggests that regulators and economists both need to shift their foci from emissions to damages; that efficient regulations must be sensitive to variations across sources in marginal damages, as well as to differences in the costs of controlling emissions. 3 references, 3 tables.