Do pollution control policies in Latin America place a disproportionate burden on the poor?
Because poor people spend more on energy as a percentage of their income than the wealthy, even in Latin America, any pollution policy that raises the price of energy is likely to be regressive, that is, burden the poor relatively more than the wealthy. But we should be concerned about not only the distribution of the costs, but the distribution of the net benefits, the benefits of pollution reduction minus the costs. The poor, for example, stand to benefit proportionately more than the rich from improvements in water quality. Which kind of policies do we use in the U.S.? With the exception of the tradable SO2 permit program, deposit refund programs, tax credits like those given for the purchase of hybrid cars, and some subsidies for research and development, U.S. environmental policies are dominated by command-and-control standards. Cars, for example, must be fitted with catalytic converters and must pass standards for their emissions per mile. If you could persuade governments in Lat
