ABATE: A New Tool to Produce Marginal Abatement Cost Curves

A marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) represents a set of options available to an economy to reduce pollution. MACC are valuable tools in that they help not only understand the costs associated with a variety of abatement options but also provide information about the amount of pollutants which can potentially be reduced. MACC have therefore become increasingly popular as instruments to inform policy discussions and to prioritize investment opportunities to reduce pollution. Surprisingly though, there are not many tools available to produce MACCs with the flexibility and functionality as was required in recent research the authors were involved in. This technical paper presents the new tool `ABATE' which arose from assessing options to improve water quality in the Great Barrier Reef.