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Abstract
Pollution of the environment is becoming an increasingly serious problem. A large
contributor to this is industry which generates effluent as a by-product of its production
process. Two methods of controlling the pollution generated by industry are the so-called
“command and control” techniques and economic incentives. In theory, economic incentives
promise a more economically efficient and equitable means of pollution control. This paper
sets out to ascertain whether this would hold in practice by applying environmental economic
theory to the practical problem of controlling the effluent generated by one particular
industry, viz the South African leather industry.