Rsik-cost analysis of environmental regulations for arsenic in Chile

摘要

Although Chile has serious problems with arsenic conentrations due to emissions from its seven copper smelters, little is known about the emissions from each smelter, or about the impact of these emissions on ambient concentrations, their exposure and health effects, or the costs of reducting them. Consequently, the costs of inefficient regulation can be very high. Against this background, this paper evaluates the risks and costs of three alternative policy instruments --uniform quality standard, flexible emission standard, and uniform emission standard-- to (i) calculate the costs of complying with each policy, and (ii) propose a cost-effective policy for arsenic regulation in Chile. Our research finds highly significant differences between the three policy instruments, and should enable regulators to make use of key data in developing an arsenic regulation policy that is appropriate for Chile.