----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
Alain, this is a very stimulating question. If you don't mind, I'd like to 
share some thoughts. 
 
It seems to me offhand that lumping the different kinds of permits together 
may be counterproductive. It's just a rough guess, but I would not be 
surprised to find the latter kind of tradable items in ancient history. We 
would expect to find them in two cases. The first is whenever there is a 
price control accompanied by some effort to regulate the distribution of 
the surplus or to select the sellers in the case of a shortage. The second 
is whenever a property owner aims to allocate it (or its use) on a 
non-price basis. Tradable pollution permits -- as a reaction to the 
"Pigouvian solution" to taxing the air polluter -- seem 
to be a thoroughly modern phenomenon. 
 
On the other hand, the similarity between air pollution permits and, say, 
permits to use common grazing land or fishing waters seems intriguing. 
Whereas clean air cannot be owned, grazing land can be. Fishing waters are 
somewhere in between, it seems. 
 
Your question stimulates me to wonder whether (1) the "Pigouvian solution" 
was a retrogression in economic theory or, alternatively, (2) whether it 
was an unconscious shift from an older problem (efficiency in the case of 
common property resources that can be owned) to a newer problem (efficiency 
in the case of common property resources that cannot be owned). 
 
Of course, the dividing line between the former kind of common property 
resources and the latter kind cannot be finely drawn. 
 
These are fascinating puzzles, I think. But perhaps I find them fascinating 
because I don't know enough about the history of these ideas. 
 
--  
Pat Gunning 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]