A Coasean solution for New Delhi?

If the late Ronald Coase could be called upon to advise the Delhi government, he would persuade chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to pay farmers in Punjab and Haryana to stop burning crop residue.

In recent times, air quality in Delhi has remained poor throughout the year for various reasons, including the rapid loss of green cover, construction of homes and infrastructure projects, and vehicular as well as industrial pollution. But for a few weeks every November, it gets almost impossible to breathe. The last straw has been the crop residue burning (CRB) by farmers in Punjab and Haryana, which causes a heavy smog to settle over Delhi…

The good news is that these [health] costs—avoidable by Delhi residents if CRB were eliminated—are about 10 times the cost that would be incurred by farmers in adopting substitutes to crop burning. Where policymakers see costs, Coase saw potential for gains from trade.

Here is more from Shruti Rajagopalan.