In his July/August 2005 "An Economic Perspective" piece for The Environmental Forum, Rob Stavins lists 7 lucky reasons why the efficiency of marketable pollution permits has become the new conventional wisdom (The Making of a Conventional Wisdom):
- increasing pollution abatement costs
- Environmental Defense embraced markets
- marketable pollution permit programs were designed to reduce emissions in addition to cutting pollution abatement costs
- economists focused on cutting abatement costs instead of fussing about the efficient target of SO2 emissions
- marketable pollution permit systems were given a chance to shine because they were implemented with newly regulated pollutants
- the Carter and Reagan deregulatory years made market-based solutions more acceptable
- chance