This paper shows possible inconsistencies in environmental law, in which regulatory impact assessment (RIA) and the polluter pays principle (PPP) coexist. While these norms can be compatible, we show that there are a number of realistic settings in which the PPP does not reach efficiency and systematically leads to regulatory failure. These systematic errors are due to the ex-ante restriction of possible actors, in combination with possible opportunistic behavior, market power issues, the existence of multiple optima and to the neglect of second-best problems in the PPP. We show that RIA, encompasses the polluter pays option and avoids these flaws.

本文显示了环境法中可能存在的不一致之处，其中监管影响评估（RIA）和污染者付费原则（PPP）共存。尽管这些规范可以兼容，但我们表明，在许多现实的设置中，PPP无法达到效率，并有系统地导致监管失败。这些系统性的错误是由于可能的参与者的事前限制，再加上可能的机会主义行为，市场支配力问题，多重最优的存在以及对PPP中次优问题的忽视。我们表明，RIA包含了污染者付费选项，并避免了这些缺陷。