Exam 17: Externalities and the Environment

When competitive market equilibrium determines a level of output for which the marginal social cost exceeds the marginal social benefit, the private equilibrium results in

The band Coldplay's funding of 10, 000 mango trees in India to help sop up emissions related to the release of their CD, A Rush of Blood to the Head, is an example of fixed-production technology.

Open-access resources tend to be

Which of the following did not help account for the recent decline in the growth of trash-to-energy plants?

Pollution taxes are paid out of the EPA Superfund in order to reduce automobile emissions.

In order to increase society's well-being, measles vaccinations might be

Education confers positive externalities because

How much of U.S.garbage is disposed of in landfills?

Robert Iwasaki lives next door to a toxic waste landfill.Katie Cooley lives five miles downstream from a steel plant that dumps waste into Mill Creek.Which person is more likely to press public officials for a cleaner environment?

The equilibrium price and quantity in a free market usually reflect private marginal costs and benefits, not social ones.

A metal-stamping factory moves next to a day care center.Noise from the factory makes it impossible for the kids to nap.It would cost the factory $5 million to move; it would cost $1 million for the day care center to move.Sound insulation for the factory costs $1 million; insulation for the day care center costs $200, 000.The court determines that the day care center has the property right.What would be the optimal solution to this problem?

If the benefits to society of students attending college exceed benefits to the students,

To achieve the socially optimal level of pollution, the biggest polluters should be targetted for the greates reduction in pollution.

If periodic use of a resource can be continued indefinitely, that resource is said to be

When consumption of a good or service produces benefits or costs that are not reflected in the market price for the good, this is known as a(n)

What kind of garbage tends to be recycled in the United States?

In a free market, a firm's rate of output is determined

The common pool problem

According to the Coase theorem, if bargaining costs are small, then there will be an efficient solution to the problem of toxic waste

To maximize social welfare in the presence of a negative externality, marginal __________ must equal marginal __________.