Role of Environmental Policies in Economics

Question

Sometimes market activities (production, buying, and selling) have unintended positive or negative effects outside the market's scope. These are called externalities.  As a policy maker concerned with correcting the effects of gases and particulates emitted by and local power plant, answer the following questions:
1.     What two policies could you use to reduce the total amount of emissions?
2.     Why do you think they each would work?
3.     What would the benefits of each action be (besides emissions reduction)?
4.     What would the costs of each action be?
5.     How would you decide what was the best level of emission reduction?


Summary

The question belongs to Economics and it is about environmental policies. As opposed to popular view of environmental policies hindering economic development, environmental policies can actually help save billions of dollars in future if right steps are taken in the present. The solution discusses this with examples.

Total Word Count 837