Balancing competing principles of environmental equity

Diverse and competing principles of equity are argued to be relevant to the burden-sharing problem For environmental improvement programmes. In this p aper, a survey-based approach is used to reconcile this conflict, which is defined as sharing of the costs of an environmental programme among differe nt individuals or groups. Respondents were asked to rank hypothetical indiv iduals or groups on the basis of differences in relevant characteristic att ributes. These attributes reflect the degree to which individuals are 'resp onsible' for the problem,'benefit' from the policy change implemented, and are 'able to pay' for the programme. The econometric analysis of responses casts light on the magnitude of trade-offs between, for example, burden-sha ring rules based on the polluter-pays principle and some of its alternative s. Our results indicate that these trade-offs do exist and, furthermore, ar e significant. Assessment of trade-offs in this way could be an important i nput into the design of mixed criteria rules for sharing burdens.