COSTS OF SOLVING ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AND PRICES OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS

The basic economic aim of the consumers of industrial products is maximasing certain benefit (better quality with lower price), while the basic aim of industrial manufacturers is maximasing profits. An optimal quality level, from the aspect of economy, is the one where the difference between quality costs and economic effects is the biggest, while economic optimum need not be equal to ecological optimum. The most acceptible level of pollution should also involve the minimal total damage for pollutee and minimal costs of decreasing pollution for polluter.

The ecological component has a growing importance in total costs of enterprises, and in profit, because the selling price of products must be competitive. If the costs of solving ecological problems became equal to selling price of some industrial product or exceeded it, the survival of that product, and enterprise producing this product, would be jeopardized. Thus, ecological problems should not be solved ad hoc, but systematically, which is the basic hypothesis the paper begins with.

Key words: ecological problems, costs, prices, profit, industrial products, industrial enterprises.

JEL Classification: Q51