The Economic Way of Thinking 13th Edition by David Prychitko, Peter Boettke, Paul Heyne

Exercise 20

Suppose that government environmental agencies decide exactly how much of each kind of industrial pollutant they will allow within a given airshed, and sell the rights to discharge these quantities of pollutants to the highest bidder.
(a) Which firms would offer the highest bids?
(b) How could citizens interested in cleaner air than the environmental agency had ordered use this system to obtain what they want?