INTERNATIONAL POLLUTION-CONTROL - A REVIEW OF MARKETABLE PERMITS - A COMMENT - REPLY

The author puts forward various points which in a sense we would not d isagree with. However, the main thrust of the Comment is a concern for the focus of the paper. He does not actually disagree with the conten t of the paper, but implies a different emphasis. We would draw attent ion in particular to the last paragraph in our Introduction, which cle arly states the scope and boundaries of the paper: ''it is the potenti al of permit systems that is to be considered'' ''that political probl ems of international cooperation are present, and this is true no matt er which policy instrument is being considered when gainers and losers are involved'' ''that likewise there will always be monitoring and en forcement costs under any regulatory system'' and finally ''whilst the significance of these issues should not be under-estimated in the con text of practical policy design, they are not the focus of this paper' '. Having explicitly stated the direction of the paper, and as will be seen below, included all but one of the issues referred to by Collins , it does seem that the debate is about choice of emphasis. The follow ing represent some more specific comments on the individual sections o f the Comment.