The economic literature differentiates “command and control” policies,
in which the public authority sets up standards and rules to directly
reduce environmental damage, from policies based on “economic tools”
aiming at internalizing the cost of environmental damage. There is a broad
consensus among economists in favour of economic tools that aim at protecting
the environment in the most efficient way, i.e. by minimizing the
total cost of pollution abatement. Despite those recommendations, most
of the environmental policies implemented in the real world continue to
favour command and control policies.
