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Abstract. We focus here on a set of conceptual problems related to the accepted theory of externalities.
We are primarily concerned with difficulties that arise when a theoretical system is extended beyond
its logical domain. This is the practice in externality theory when the market model assuming
independent agents is used to analyze physical interdependency. The different kinds of dependencies
obscure the standard use of the Paretian analysis, as the issues of rights and efficiency are mixed
up. The creation of emissions and the creation of externalities are further not held apart producing
flows in the efficiency evaluations. Due to the interdependencies involved, actions of both emitter
and victim must be taken into account while searching for efficient policies. Finally, we analyze the
interrelationships between what is termed the internal structure of the market model and the annexed
sphere of externalities. We conclude that the accepted policy prescriptions both assume and demand
no interrelationships between these two spheres. We find the assumption unrealistic and inconsistent
as concerns the basic foundations of the market model. There are two main traditions addressing
externalities – the Coasean and the Pigovian. This paper shows that both are vulnerable to the above
critique. Thus the presumption that externality theory is now settled and coherent is seen to be without
theoretical support.
Key words: externalities, market model, rights, Pigovian taxes, Coase Theorem, social costs
1. Introduction
The unfortunate label ‘market failure’ has long been associated with externalities –
probably owing to the seminal paper by Francis Bator (1958). However, externali-
ties do not represent market failure. Given the market, the presence of externalities
can be interpreted as a rational result and thus cannot properly be called a ‘failure’
of the market. Dahlman (1979) claims that transaction costs are the sole source
of externalities, and Randall (1983) clarifies: ‘: : : it has long been clear that the
non-existence of certain markets is a rational market response to transaction costs
in excess of potential gains from trade’ (p. 137).
However, there is a problem of circularity embedded in the above observations
with important implications for efficiency evaluations of market outcomes. The
form and magnitude of transaction costs are a function of the institutional setting
– be it markets or other forms of transaction arrangements. Thus the amount of
what becomes ‘external’ simply reflects the structure of the ‘internal’ and cannot
be analyzed independent of that very same structure.
ex ante and ex post definition is crucial. The character of the problem is such that
the emitter may not know – or will not be made liable for creating any harm – until
some considerable time after the activity is undertaken. And given the situation as it
then exists, it may be quite impossible to achieve a traditional Pareto improvement.
That is, it is almost certain that someone in such circumstance must lose, while
others will gain.
We find this dilemma in the classic work of Baumol and Oates (1988). After
discussing the properties of a Pigovian tax for solving an externality, they emphasize
that:
The price-tax conditions necessary to sustain the Pareto optimality of a compet-
itive market solution under the assumed convexity conditions are tantamount
to standard Pigovian rules, with neither taxes imposed upon, nor compensation
paid to, the victims of externalities (Baumol and Oates 1988, p. 45).
However, in their discussion of transboundary externalities, Baumol and Oates
lament the absence of a world government and the obvious problem that one
cannot expect a country emitting pollution to reduce it to some optimal level. In
considering this problem, they conclude:
We cannot simply rely on a program of pollution abatement in country A
[the polluting country] for this would impose costs on A with no offsetting
benefits to the polluting country. The OECD’s Polluter-Pays-Principle is thus
inconsistent with our insistence on a Pareto improvement. Mutual gains to the
countries necessarily require the victim country B to make some payments to
A (Baumol and Oates 1988, pp. 280–281).
If a Pigovian tax is necessary and sufficient to solve polluter-victim problems
efficiently within a country, why is it not good enough for transboundary pollution
and its victims? From the perspective of a Pareto improvement and physical inter-
actions, there is no substantive difference between two individuals, two firms, or
two nations. After the imposition of a Pigovian tax, it is clear that there will be
gainers and losers as measured against the status quo ante.
We see, therefore, a mixing of measures of optimality with the institution-
ally defined ability to define and enforce a certain rights structure addressing
external effects. The Baumol and Oates prescription for transboundary externali-
ties, a prescription that contradicts their earlier general policy rule, is derived from
the ordinary Pareto rule – not from the Potential Pareto Improvement (PPI) rule. Of
course, in the absence of the enforcement power of the state, international pollution
leaves little scope for alternative policies. Actually, a common authority like the
state – a power at a level above the atomistic agents – is a prerequisite for breaking
the circularity about rights and efficiency previously defined. Not only that the PPI
rule becomes a potential basis for action. As we now see, the PPI rule is the only
Paretian rule that can be used to defend the Pigovian solution with its consequences
for value neutral policy evaluations (Mishan 1980; Griffin 1995). Schmid (1987)
seems to be alone in recognizing this.
It is therefore impossible to advance a rule that can generally define even the
quite narrow question of physical causality. What then is the basis for the Pigovian
perception and its alleged value neutral taxing rule? Coase’s arguments imply that
the Pigovian position is based foremost on moral grounds. While Randall (1974)
argues that Coase presumably cast the issue in reciprocal terms so as to purge
environmental policy of the moral dimension implicit in Pigou.
The Pigovian perception and its taxing rule may seem intuitively obvious
because the most common pollution cases are ones in which the emitter was
not there first, but came after established uses were underway. There have always
been laundries hanging out the linen, but smokey factories are the product of the
Industrial Revolution; a period of some significance when Pigou learned his eco-
nomics. But by altering the sequence of things, the apparent clarity disappears.
Coase (1960) offers an illustrative example – Bryant v. Lefever. Coase writes:
The plaintiff and the defendants were occupiers of adjoining houses which
were of about the same height. Before 1876 the plaintiff was able to light a
fire in any room of his house without the chimneys smoking: the two houses
had remained in the same condition some thirty or forty years. In 1876 the
defendants took down their house, and began to rebuild it. They carried up the
wall by the side of the plaintiff’s chimneys much beyond its original height,
and stacked timber on the roof of their house, and thereby caused the plaintiff’s
chimneys to smoke whenever he lighted fires (Coase 1960, p. 11).
In Pigovian terms it seems obvious that the plaintiff had a convincing argument;
the externality was indeed created by the defendant’s action. The plaintiff had done
nothing different from long-accepted practice and therefore could not be thought to
have ‘caused’ the problem. As the case worked its way through the courts, however,
things became somewhat less clear. In the first decision, the plaintiff was awarded
compensation for the defendant’s actions. However, on appeal the judgment was
reversed Coase cites the judge:
They (the defendants) have done nothing in causing the nuisance. Their house
and timber are harmless enough. It is the plaintiff who causes the nuisance
by lighting a coal fire in a place the chimney of which is placed so near the
defendants’ wall, that the smoke does not escape, but comes into the house.
Let the plaintiff cease to light his fire, let him move his chimney, let him carry
it higher, and there would be no nuisance. Who then causes it? It would be
very clear that the plaintiff did if he had built his house or chimney after the
defendants had put up the timber on theirs, and it is really the same though he
did so before the timber was there. But (what is in truth the same answer), if
the defendants cause the nuisance, they have a right to do so. If the plaintiff
has not the right to the passage of air, except subject to the defendants’ right
to build or put timber on their house, then his right is subject to their right and
although nuisance follows from the exercise of their right, they are not liable
(Coase 1960, p. 12).
We see that the appellate court recognized the importance of rights to air move-
ment. We also see recognition of the priority of one type of rights as against another.
If further seems evident that the two courts placed very different weight on the
issue of the order in which the events occurred. The party being ‘harmed’ is the one
who simply wished to light a fire – an act almost as old as human history. Yet the
hidden Pigovian perception causes the analyst to start looking for the cause of the
‘externality.’ If the owner of the fireplace – the one hurt – ‘causes’ the externality
himself by lighting his own fire, then it would hardly qualify as an externality
in the eyes of received economic doctrine. The appellate judge saw this essential
point. Our point here is not to argue which party had the more compelling case.
Rather, it is to make clear the general impossibility of creating a rule that, from
mere technical logic, offers a consistent basis for determining the correct rights
structure. At bottom, coherent rights can only be established through a process that
starts not with physical acts, but with Kantian reason (Bromley 1991). All rights
are value based because they are willfully determined through collective action.
Interestingly, these arguments trap Coase as well. It was from cases such as
Bryant v. Lefever that Coase drew the conclusion that the only reasonable position
is that the actions of both parties are of singular importance in causing the problem.
Both parties were, in fact, the ‘cause’ of their new conflict. But arguing this way
deprives externality issues of their basic character – the moral issues related to the
intrusions we make into each other’s lives and space.
Let a butcher (B), throw the waste from his activities into the garden of N,
a nearby nursery school. Formally there is no difference to the above case in a
Coasean sense. Both parties – B and N – had to be undertaking their respective
activities in their particular locations for a problem to arise. But it does not seem
obvious that this is a case of reciprocal responsibility given the values involved.
Indeed some will argue that pollution itself is a culturally defined notion (Douglas
1966). Douglas argues that pollution is ‘matter out of place’ and so it should be
obvious that one must address both the substance of the ‘matter’ in dispute, and
what it means to be ‘out of place.’ Thus the endorsement of externalities as a
moral issue implicit in Pigou’s policy rule is appropriate, while the explicit claim
of advancing a value free and objective efficiency rule becomes contradictory.
incidence of transaction costs. Liability for remedial action must lie with the party
best able to handle change with the minimum of such costs. Transaction costs are
either so high that no change in outcomes is deemed ‘efficient,’ or transaction costs
are low enough – at least for one side – to permit a bargained transaction. In this
case, the cheapest solution will be found through bargaining.
Actually, the above discussion is a generous interpretation of Coase (1960) since
he seems to mix up the reasoning. When making his point, Coase focuses only on
the direct abatement costs and ignores the distribution of transaction costs. But as
Coase turns to the Pigovian world, he offers an important challenge. The standard
Pigovian solution is that it will always be Pareto optimal to tax the emitter at the
level where marginal damage equals marginal abatement costs.
Baumol and Oates (1988) make, as we have seen, the Pigovian position very
clear. Except for the case of transnational pollution, they affirm that all arguments
about the need for additional measures toward the ‘victims’ are not appropriate.
They further clarify their position by noting ‘: : : the damages that victims suffer
from the detrimental externality provide precisely the correct incentive to induce
them to undertake the efficient levels of defensive activities’ (Baumol and Oates
1988, p. 22).
The literature shows unanimity on this matter and so the issue seems settled
(Burrows 1980; Fisher 1990; Hartwick and Oleweiler 1986; Pearce and Turner
1990). Despite the apparent consensus, the analysis is flawed. The problem arises
from the fact that Baumol and Oates fail to consider the full impact of moving the
responsibility between ‘polluter’ and ‘victim.’
Recall that the standard solution is to make the emitter(s) liable through the impo-
sition of a tax on emissions. However, there may be further defensive expenditures
by recipients even after abatement is undertaken by the emitter(s). If such defensive
expenditures are undertaken, it suggests that it might have been cheaper to let the
recipients carry out more (or all) of the remedial action under standard convexity
assumptions. This is not recognized in the Baumol and Oates analysis. Consider
Figure 1.
We depict pollution and costs along the axes. Curve I shows the marginal
damage costs of pollution, with OC as the current pollution level. Curve II shows
the marginal cost of abatement when undertaken by the emitter(s) only. Curve III
shows the marginal cost of defensive action that might similarly be undertaken
exclusively by the recipients of pollution. Marginal costs are assumed to be strictly
increasing. To simplify the exposition, we assume fixed abatement costs to be
equal in the two cases. Following standard Pigovian reasoning, a tax TO should be
imposed. Net social gain would be CEG with pollution reduced to OB. Given this
outcome, recipients will find it preferable to defend themselves. If we assume that
Figure 1. Negative externality and cost relationships under different liability rules.
marginal costs are related only to the level of pollution confronting the recipient,
then pollution would be reduced further to OA, and the extra gain will be FDE.
But if it is economically sound for victims to take any defensive action, it is
most probably cheaper to make them (the victims) liable. With cost curves as in
Figure 1, victim’s responsibility creates the same reduction in effective pollution
(AC) with the area CFE comprising an extra net gain compared with the traditional
Pigovian solution. Victim’s liability may not seem fair, but it is ceteris paribus the
cheapest.
An immediate challenge to this approach is to claim that curve III will usually
lie above curve II, making Pigovian taxes (or other emitter oriented measures) the
cheapest solution. But this particular circumstance does not establish the universal
case in favor of polluter responsibility being cheapest.
Another argument relates to the sequence of action. If the victim acts before
a tax is imposed, the least costly solution in the given setting may be reached.
But if the Pigovian rule is generally accepted, victims will be motivated to await
state (collective) action. Some cases may be such that the costs of waiting are high
enough to bring forth (some) victims’ action. But again, this instance does not save
the Pigovian solution in general.
The policy reversal observed here arises from incompleteness in traditional
analyses. There are actually two different remedial strategies of relevance. Notice,
as above, that the defined responsibility determines which abatement strategy
appears to be efficient. For each institutional setting – or for each presumed rights
regime – there is an ‘efficient’ remediation strategy. This policy reversal will occur
when transaction costs are high enough to prevent bargaining between the parties.
That must be the case if the Pigovian rule is to be of interest. In his search for
efficiency, the Pigovian planner must bear the responsibility of comparing the two
settings in their totality.
The Pigovian claim is that taxing the emitter gives the correct static as well as
dynamic results. It has long been clear that if the recipient must face all of the
remediation costs, ‘too many’ polluters will persist, thereby creating long-run inef-
ficiency. But given a clear understanding of the interdependency between the parties
– the reciprocal nature of externalities as physically defined – there is a similar
argument about what may happen on the side of the recipients. Certainly Coase
makes a relevant point when he recognizes that making the emitter responsible
may induce ‘too many’ victims to move into the area.
Consider a locality with a polluting firm and a set of residences living nearby.
Let us further think of another non-polluting firm that considers moving in. There
are two possible rules of rights: Rule R would change the tax level as soon as the
firm moves in to restore equivalence between the new marginal environmental cost
curve and the tax. Rule S would leave it unchanged. Unfortunately, neither rule
will – in general – induce a social optimum. This is most easily shown of the case
of a non-depletable externality (a general public ‘bad’). Consider Figure 2.
Curve I shows the marginal pollution costs from the status quo number of
emitters and victims in an area. Curve III depicts the marginal abatement costs.
The optimal tax is OT1 with pollution OF. Let the policy rule be R. Suppose our
non-polluting firm finds it profitable to move in on these grounds – the marginal
costs of pollution shift to curve II. The ex post optimal tax would then be OT2 . If
we look at the environmental costs given that the firm has already moved, this tax
increase induces a net gain equal to CDE consisting of an increased gain of the
old residents amounting to ABEF, a gain for the moving firm of BCDE, and an
increased abatement cost of ACEF.
But added to that we need to look at the other costs and gains of moving –
illustrated by the situation created if the tax was not changed (rule S). Let us
assume that the firm wants to move because this would lower transportation costs,
but that this gain is counteracted by increased costs due to higher pollution as
compared to the previous location. Let us say that the net relocation costs for the
firm with pollution at OF an positive. If they are less than CDE, it is still socially
optimal to motivate the firm to move. To create this we simply invoke rule R. On
the other hand, it might be that the relocation costs are greater than CDE (but less
than BCDE to make it a relevant case). If so, then rule S is appropriate.
Baumol and Oates (1988), as Mäler (1974) before them, consider this a case
of pecuniary externality and therefore irrelevant for policy. Baumol and Oates are
quite explicit in their treatment. First, they define a technological externality to be
a physical interdependency generating shifts in some production function, while
a pecuniary externality only affects financial circumstances. Second, they accept
that moving victims will create an increase in the tax level – implying that they
interpret R to conform with the Pigovian policy. They emphasize however that the
increased tax only creates pecuniary effects:
An increase in the laundry activity that increases the tax rate is precisely
analogous to an increase in shoe production that increases the cost of leather
to handbag manufacturers. In each case, a resource (in one case, leather, in the
other, clean air) has become more valuable and the price of the resource has
increased commensurately, as proper resource allocation requires (Baumol and
Oates 1988, p. 32).
In our mind the two cases are clearly different. The leather case reflects the
price effect of some occurring scarcity, which should not in any case be viewed
as an externality since this is the way markets are supposed to work as long as
rights are clearly defined. The clean air example on the other hand is about how
to define rights and measure scarcity in a case where physical interdependencies
are involved. From our example we see that the rule applied – R or S – defines
which costs enter the agents’ calculations and which resource allocation is thereby
induced. The question is thus not about a change in the scarcity of air. It is about
which costs the various agents are to face in a situation where (1) the action of one
influences the value of the resource for the other, and (2) the rights system defines
whether this is to be considered a cost – and for whom.
Again the misinterpretation occurs as an interdependency is treated as if it
consisted of only independent actions. For an optimal tax policy to be put into
practice, both the action of the polluting firm and all moving firms (even potentially
moving firms) must be taken into consideration. Both activities influence the net
social product and it would seem efficient to change the rule from case to case. This
is certainly not feasible, thus demonstrating the limits for choosing institutions on
efficiency grounds.
these circumstances, we suggest that the greater may be the need for institutional
change to address the undesirable side effects emanating therefrom.
An important policy question follows logically from such self-contradictions.
What will be most ‘efficient’ in the totality of things: To direct or constrain the
expansion of the market through certain ex ante restrictions on the constellation
of choice sets? Or to tax the externalities that market development and evolution
tend to create as we observe them ex post? If the ‘internal’ and the ‘external’ are
interrelated, there exists a tradeoff problem here. These are certainly wide and
complex issues. But given a model that abstracts from these interrelations, the
problem is neglected.
5. Conclusions
This paper has focussed on a set of conceptual flaws in externality theory. Our aim
has been to detect inconsistencies and offer explanations for their occurrence. The
problems observed arise because a theoretical model with its conceptual basis is
extended beyond its logical domain. The process of studying physical interdepen-
dence among actors from within a theoretical construct that in its basis disregards
such relationships is certain to offer limited return on one’s investment of time and
effort. As Krupp (1963) has shown, the combination of units in deductive systems
must obey the same laws as the basic or individual units.
We have identified several problems with the received wisdom of externality
theory and policy. When analysts start with the stylized model of the market –
which, perforce, assumes that rights are already defined and allocated – the basic
question to be addressed with respect to externalities is incapable of resolution.
Further, there is a curious twist in the standard Pigovian approach to the matter
of efficiency. From the assurance that the criterion is a standard Paretian rule, one
encounters the claim of value neutrality. But only the Potential Paretian Improve-
ment rule, with its extended problems of neutrality, fits the character of the problem.
Further, we see that the Pigovian rule does not necessarily secure the greatest net
social product. That is, it will sometimes be ‘efficient’ for victims to undertake
remedial action.
The basic problem here is related to the structure of the traditional externality
model. We have seen that the conventional approach is to graft an external sphere
on to the traditional model of the fully ‘internalized’ world. This two-stage model
confuses the central issue by concealing important dynamic questions. Indeed,
the contemporary method of analysis demands no interrelation between what is
regarded as the internal structure of the model of the economy, and what then
creates externalities and also determines their form and magnitude. When these
interrelations exist, the coherence and correctness of policy prescriptions deduced
from the model must be open to serious suspicion.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable suggestions of Michael Farmer
and two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version.
Notes
1
This formulation is based on the standard definition of externalities as found in Mishan (1971)
and Baumol and Oates (1988). Here externalities are defined as situations where one economic actor’s
utility or production function includes variables whose values are chosen by others, and these others
do not compensate (for costs) or receive payments (for benefits) relative to the shifted values. Baumol
and Oates emphasize that even though payments are made, not all externalities are brought to zero.
This means that they accept an implicit distinction between Pareto relevant and Pareto irrelevant
externalities.
2
Such logic always invites incredulity and causes the reader to insist that the right should go to
the party who was ‘there first.’ But of course this time-dependent approach cannot be relied on for
coherent policy for the simple reason that ‘in the beginning’ there were probably no environmental
externalities at all. Policy requires more than freezing situations in time. More will be said on this
below.
3
There is a difference between Mishan (1971) and Baumol and Oates (1988) here. Mishan talks
about unintended or incidental acts. Baumol and Oates refer to Mishan, but use the phrase ‘without
particular attention to’ or ‘deliberately does something to affect A’s welfare’ (p. 17). This is not the
same, though Baumol and Oates do not seem to acknowledge any difference. Our point is not that the
economic actors deliberately produce the externality to harm someone. They do it to intentionally
reduce their own costs, perhaps acknowledging that it also may harm others, which is something
different indeed.
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