Two firms, A and B, each currently dump 50 tonnes of chemicals into the local river. From now on both firms will require a pollution permit for each tonne of pollution dumped into the river. The government gives each firm 20 tonnes' worth of pollution permits, which it can either use or sell to the other firm. It costs Firm A $100 for each tonne of pollution that it eliminates before it reaches the river, and it costs Firm B $50 for each tonne of pollution that it eliminates before it reaches the river. What is likely to happen?

Firm B will sell all its permits to Firm A i. e (lesser chemical dumps into the river)

Explanation:

Firm B will rather sell all its 20 tonnes worth of pollution permit to firm A because it would cause Firm B lesser than Firm A when they dispose off their wastes before it gets to the River hence they will rather dispose off their waste rather than paying/purchasing pollution permits while

Firm A will buy out all of Firm B's allotted pollution permits to reduce the number of tonnes they would dispose off before getting to the river. this is because it would cause them more when they dispose off their waste before getting it to the river. hence the End product of the whole arrangement will be Chemical dumps into the River will be reduced drastically to 40 overall instead of 100 due to the cost of dumping permits.

10 fewer tons of pollution into the river and Firm B will dump 50 fewer tons of pollution into the river.

Explanation:

Firm B will SELL ALL of its allotted 20 permits, and clean up all of its 50 units of pollution. The price per permit will be above $50 each. Firm A will BUY ALL 20 of B's permits. It will then dump 40 tons into the water, and will clean up its remaining 10. The price it pays for a permit will be under $100.