Lowering the cost of pollution control versus controlling pollution

Economists have long argued that the market-incentive approach to pollution control would achieve that control at least cost. The political rejection of the market-incentives approach and embrace of the far more costly command-and-control approach has been explained in terms of the tendency in the political process to favor the interests of organized groups over those of the unorganized public. But because of this tendency, it may be that a move to the market-based approach to pollution control would result in less pollution control and be less efficient than the existing command-and-control approach.