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Regional Marginal Costs and Cost Savings from Economies of Scale in Municipal Waste Treatment: An Application to the Chesapeake Bay Region
Author(s) -
McCONNELL VIRGINIA D.,
CUMBERLAND JOHN H.,
GORDON PATRICE L.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2257.1988.tb00479.x
Subject(s) - chesapeake bay , marginal cost , economies of scale , bay , economics , scale (ratio) , natural resource economics , environmental science , fishery , estuary , geography , microeconomics , biology , cartography , archaeology
Marginal costs of removing effluent from waste treatment facilities are defined under different assumptions about regulatory policies. Marginal costs are different under a policy of uniform treatment for all plants compared to a least‐cost policy, where different plants treat at different levels. The cost savings under these alternative policies are compared for river basins of the Chesapeake Bay when there are economies of scale in treatment costs. Current regulations for treatment plants in the Bay, which are not entirely uniform, are also compared to both the uniform and least‐cost solutions. The potential savings from a least‐cost policy are substantial for some basins.