First published in 1968 by the University of Toronto Press, this reprinted volume written by a former University of Toronto economics professor examines the economics of pollution, arguing for an alternative policy instrument ("markets in pollution rights"), a strategy by which the environmental authority issues a limited number of rights (or permits) to emit a specified pollutant and then leaves the determination of the price of these permits and their allocation to users of the market. Includes a new foreword by Wallace E. Oates (economics, U. of Maryland). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

'Dales pointed out that traditional economic and legal solutions to pollution and resource problems were never going to be satisfactory and that a "third way" was needed. Today, all environmental economists of my generation recognise the debt we owe to Dales's work, as one of the intellectual foundations for emissions trading that began in California in the 1970s and now extends across the world. It is a work of immense influence which deserves reprinting.' - David Pearce, University College London, UK In this classic book, originally published in 1968 by University of Toronto Press, John Dales proposed a new policy instrument for tackling pollution problems, namely 'markets in pollution rights'. Dales was one of the first economists to put forward such a solution, and in subsequent years a system of emissions trading has evolved which is now a centrepiece in international discussions of how to address the problem of global climate change.

Environmental protection and resource conservation depend on the imposition of property rights (broadly defined) because in the absence of some property system - private, common, or public - resource degradation and depletion are inevitable. But there is no universal, first-best property regime for environmental protection in this second-best world. Using case studies and examples taken from countries around the world, this 2002 book demonstrates that the choice of ownership institution is contingent upon institutional, technological, and ecological circumstances that determine the differential costs of instituting, implementing, and maintaining alternative regimes. Consequently, environmental protection is likely to be more effective and more efficient in a society that relies on multiple (and often mixed) property regimes. The book concludes with an assessment of the important contemporary issue of 'takings', which arise when different property regimes collide.