This book by Thomas Sterner and Jessica Coria is an attempt to encourage more widespread and careful use of economic policy instruments. The book compares the accumulated experiences of the use of economic policy instruments in the U.S. and Europe, as well as in rich and poor countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ambitious in scope, it discusses the design of instruments that can be employed in any country in a wide range of contexts, including transportation, industrial pollution, water pricing, waste, fisheries, forests, and agriculture.
While deeply rooted in economics, Policy Instruments is informed by political, legal, ecological, and psychological research. The new edition enhances what has already been widely hailed as a highly innovative work. The book includes greatly expanded coverage of climate change, covering aspects related to policy design, international equity and discounting, voluntary carbon markets, permit trading in United States, and the Clean Development Mechanism. Focusing ever more on leading ideas in both theory and policy, the new edition brings experimental economics into the main of its discussions. It features expanded coverage of the monitoring and enforcement of environmental policy, technological change, the choice of policy instruments under imperfect competition, and subjects such as corporate social responsibility, bio-fuels, payments for ecosystem services, and REDD.
About the authors
Thomas Sterner is a Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Gothenburg. He is a former president of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. He is also a University Fellow at RFF and he has published widely on the theory and practice of environmental policy making.Jessica Coria is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Gothenburg and Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile. Her work lies on the effects of the choice of different environmental policy instruments and modelling of environmental regulations.
Table of contents
1. Background and Overview Part1. The Need for Environmental and Natural Resource Policy 2. Causes of Environmental Degradation 3. The Evolution of Rights Part 2. Review of Policy Instruments 4. Direct Regulation of the Environment 5. Taxes 6. Tradable Permits 7. Subsidies, Deposit-Refund Schemes, and Refunded Emissions Payments 8. Property Rights, Legal Instruments, and Informational Policies. Part 3. Selection of Policy Instruments 9. Efficiency of Policy Instruments 10. Role of Uncertainty and Asymmetric information 11. Equilibrium Effects and Market Conditions 12. Distribution of Costs 13. Politics and Enforcement of Policy Instruments 14. International Aspects and Climate Change 15. Design of Policy Instruments Part 4. Policy Instruments for Road Transportation 16. Environmental Damages Caused by Transportation and Road Pricing Vehicles 17. Taxation or Regulation for Fuel Efficiency 18. Fuel Quality Policies 19. Vehicle Standards, Urban Planning and Lessons Learned Part 5. Policy Instruments for Industrial Pollution 20. Global Climate Change: International, Domestic Policies and Carbon Markets. 21. Experience in Developing Countries Part 6. Policy Instruments for the Management of Natural Resources and Ecosystems 22. Adapting Models to Ecosystems: Ecology, Time and Space. 23. Water 24. Waste 2
