About this book
Thomas Sterner's book 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.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
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
25. Fisheries
26. Agriculture
27. Forestry
28. Ecosystems
Part 7. Conclusion
29. Policy Issues and Potential Solutions
References
Index
About the Author and Contributors
Customer Reviews
Biography
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 the lead editor of the RFF Press-Environment for Development book series.
Jessica Coria is a postdoc at the University of Gothenburg.
