Does Abatement Cost Mean Cost of Reducing Emissions with Output Held Constant? In the economics of pollution control, frequent reference is made to 'abatement cost' and/or 'marginal abatement cost'.  Is it normally implicit in the use of these terms in economics that output is held constant?  In other words, that the cost referred to is the cost of reducing emissions while producing the same output?

Common &amp; Stagl (1) offer an explanation of abatement cost which explicitly states that abatement may be achieved by a reduction in the activity producing the emissions.  However, most presentations of abatement cost that I have seen do not make such a statement.  So would that perhaps be a non-standard usage from an ecological economics perspective?

Please note this is a question about correct or normal usage of 'abatement cost'.  There is of course a real issue about whether we should be producing and consuming less so as to reduce damage to the environment, but I'm not asking about that here.

Reference:
(1) Common M &amp; Stagl S (2005) Ecological Economics: An Introduction Cambridge University Press  p 415
No, there's no assumption that output is constant.

Indeed, in most cases, it's expected that output will change, if only a little.

For example, there are abatement costs that involve a one-off increase in output which brings about a long-term decrease in output, such as insulating buildings to abate greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel powered heating.

Let's take the case of an Australian dwelling being insulated late in the year, during the start of summer, in November 2014 (I'll take the accouting year to be the same as the calendar year, rolling over on 1 Jan). So for 2014, we have had full heating costs from the winter that took place May-August, as well as the manufacture and installation of the insulation materials; so 2014 sees an increase in output over 2013. But in 2015, that insulation won't be manufactured or installed, and the dwelling's heating demand will be lower, so 2015's output is below that of both 2014 and 2013.

To produce output-constant costs would require putting the abatement measures through a macroeconomic model, as part of their cost-estimation. Abatement cost calculations are messy and uncertain enough as it is (before we even get onto the problems with marginal abatement cost curves, one of their more common presentations), without adding a whole extra layer of messy uncertainty that is macroeconomic modelling.