00:01
So here we're talking about the marginal benefit from pollution abatement, right? and this curve would usually look something like this, right? we have to talk about the quantity of abatement and the marginal benefit.
00:16
And my argument is that the marginal benefit would look something like this.
00:19
It is downward sloping.
00:21
And the reason is why.
00:23
Well, there's a few reasons, right? why? it's one you do the most important stuff.
00:31
First.
00:33
So when you start abating pollution, you clean up the pollution that is the most damaging first, right? that's what makes sense to do, right? the most important stuff or the cheapest stuff, right? you get the most bang for your buck when you begin a cleanup project because you can do the cheap stuff and the most important stuff.
00:54
As you do more and more and more abatement, you get less and less and less and less impact from your dollar, right? this is what you would call diminishing marginal returns, right? the same thing as, you know, most economic phenomena.
01:11
But you might also think about people's preferences, right? as the environment gets cleaner, this might probably implies, ooh, that wasn't my best handwriting.
01:29
As environment gets cleaner, you might think that there is less benefit from cleanup.
01:36
So as you move from having a filthy environment to a tolerable environment, you appreciate that change.
01:42
But as you move from having a very clean environment to a very, very, very clean environment, that change might not make much of a big deal to you, right? you don't really notice the change of going from excellent to really excellent as much as you notice the change going from bad to okay, right? as you get closer to perfect.
02:03
So let's try to match these reasons to the answers that we've been provided.
02:09
So the first one, a, says that mb increases, and i just think that's wrong, right? mb increases.
02:17
This is wrong.
02:18
And in particular, it advances the idea that people's preferences change, right? preferences don't change.
02:28
Preferences would shift the mb curve, right? if they don't determine...