ABSTRACT
Our intentions at this point are to pursue two lines of inquiry related to the regional model we have been describing. Both require restructuring the Lower Delaware Valley regional model as an LP model by removing the nonlinear ecosystem model of the Delaware Estuary and replacing it with a linear dissolved oxygen model. (We are currently in the process of doing this.) This modification will allow us to investigate, more efficiently, the distributional implications of various policies. First, we shall examine: (1) the impact on regional efficiency of different constraints on the distribution of costs, given a set of ambient standards, and (2) how costs shift among groups of dischargers when different distributional constraints on costs are imposed. Second, we shall begin to explore the political side of the model in cooperation with Edwin Haefele. That is, we shall examine how political “trades” on costs and on desired levels of environmental quality might be made among the local jurisdictions in such a way as to produce greater regional consensus on a desirable environmental policy for the region.
