By
E. Woerdman, University of Groningen, Department of Law and Economics, The Netherlands
Description
The objective of this book is to analyze the institutional barriers to implementing market-based climate policy, as well as to provide
some opportunities to overcome them. The approach is that of institutional economics, with special emphasis on political transaction
costs and path dependence.
Instead of rejecting the neoclassical approach, this book uses it where fruitful and shows when and
why it is necessary to employ a new or neo-institutionalist approach. The result is that equity is considered next to efficiency, that
the evolution and possible lock-in of both formal and informal climate institutions are studied, and that attention is paid to the politics
and law of economic instruments for climate policy, including some new empirical analyses.
The research topics of this book include
the set-up costs of a permit trading system, the risk that credit trading becomes locked-in, the potential legal problem of grandfathering
in terms of actional subsidies under WTO law or state aid under EC law, and the changing attitudes of various European officials towards
restricting the use of the Kyoto Mechanisms.
Included in series
Developments in Environmental Economics
