Policy Watch: Economics and the Clean Air Act
分析了美国《清洁空气法》的拟议修订，指出该法在设定空气质量标准时未充分考虑成本效益分析，并从经济学角度提出了改进监管的建议。
The Clean Air Act, arguably the nation's most important environmental statute, is sure to be amended by the 101st Congress. In neither its current nor its likely new form does the Act feature much of a role for economic considerations. In fact, one approach that many economists would presumably favor—the balancing of benefits and costs in setting air quality or source discharge standards—has been found by courts to be inconsistent with the law (Lead Industries Association v. EPA, 1980). Here I describe the likely changes in the Clean Air Act and what is known (and, more often, not known) about their associated costs and benefits, and identify respects in which air quality regulation could be improved from an economic perspective.