Endogenous Preferences, Environmental Law

Abstract

How can we explain the rise of environmental law?By what criteria should we evaluate regulation of pollution?Why do some cities require recycling?Should we tax waste disposal instead?Should we subsidize mass transit in order to reduce automobile pollution, or should we regulate cars?Why do we do one rather than another?In the last generation, considerable progress has been made on all of these questions.Most of the progress results from the application of varieties or offshoots of welfare economics-expected utility theory, social and public choice theory, and game theory-to environmental problems.If we assume, for example, that participants in the political process are trying to maximize their utility, we can help explain many oddities of American environmental law.We can see why some statutes seem to benefit regional interests.1 We can understand why old pollution sources are regulated more severely than new ones.2 We can see why Congress enacts measures that are expensive and only moderately helpful to the environment, but that promise to deliver large benefits to wellorganized groups.3 Perhaps most important, we can understand the omnipresence of largely symbolic environmental legislation-measures that appear on their face to promise vigorous and even draconian regulation, but that in the enforcement process amount to little more than mere words.The pervasive paradox of rigid but underenforced environmental legislation may well match the electoral self-interest of legislators.

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