Download or read book Comparing Water Quality Policies Through an Institutional Transaction Cost Frame written by Dale B. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many economists have studied the effects of political, administrative, and legal institutions on the design and performance of environmental policies. While there have been a number of empirical studies of some institutional effects, not all aspects of enforcement activities have been examined empirically. Some suggest that environmental policies should be evaluated by comparing the sum of their compliance costs and their enforcement costs. While we have many estimates of compliance costs, the costs of enforcement activities themselves have not been addressed empirically. Furthermore, we lack an integrative understanding of all of these institutional effects. An integrative approach is necessary because there are many tradeoffs between these effects, and these tradeoffs can be missed by less integrative approaches. This article uses an institutional-transaction-cost (ITC) framework to examine water quality policies, both empirically and in an integrative manner. We perform two comparisons, one of two point source policies and another of two nonpoint source policies. In the first, we compare a non-tradeable effluent limit permit policy versus an effluent charges policy. We see that even when ITC are considered, the economic-incentive-based policy of effluent charges is still a more cost-effective policy instrument than a command-and-control policy of NELP, although sensitivity analysis shows that this might not always be true. In the second, an effluent tax on irrigation districts is compared with a mandatory best-management-practices policy. We find that a decentralized enforcement body used in the case of the effluent tax will be both a more efficient and a more effective enforcement agency to control nonpoint pollution. In both of these comparisons, the ITC framework was used to generate detailed estimates of the costs of enforcing these policies. The methodology used is broadly applicable, and thus will be useful in estimating the costs of enforcing other environmental policies. Furthermore, these integrative comparisons offer insights into the tradeoffs generated by these policies. The second comparison focuses on the tradeoffs between higher detection costs due to the monitoring of discharges of an irrigation district versus corresponding reductions in other ITC. This article also examines tradeoffs from a specific design feature of the effluent charges system. By better understanding these tradeoffs, we more fully appreciate the complexities presented by these policies.
Download or read book The Institutional Transaction Cost Framework for Public Policy Analysis written by Dale B. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article presents the institutional-transaction-cost framework for public policy analysis. While many economists have considered institutional effects, none has presented a complete view of how these institutions affect the desirability of policies. By integrating many diverse insights into a single framework, this article provides a means for examining the role of the complete range of institutional factors. It offers a cost effectiveness framework for systematically comparing policies over costs incurred during their enactment, implementation, enforcement, and operation. It also provides a checklist of variables and parameters that are necessary to construct estimates of these costs. With these estimates, an analyst can properly weigh the relevance of these institutional factors. This article then offers two comparisons of water quality policies to demonstrate how this framework is used.
Download or read book Institutions Transaction Costs and Environmental Policy written by Ray Challen and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is an excellent piece of work, applying the economic theory of property rights and transaction costs to the complex policy problems associated with water use in irrigation. Challen examines the determination of transaction costs and the way they interact with a realistic specification of property rights. He thereby avoids the two main defects found in much work in this area: first, the use of a simplistic division of property rights schemes, for example one based on polar categories of private property and common property, defined to mean open access, and second, a tendency to use the category of transaction costs as an unexamined "black box".' - John Quiggin, James Cook University, Australia 'A most encouraging trend in economics concerns the careful and non-teleological study of institutions. From an era in which institutions were completely ignored, through an era in which it was thought that institutions were mere constraints on otherwise beneficent behavior in markets, through an era in which it was thought that the purpose of institutions was to promote economic efficiency, we now seem to be firmly in an era in which it is understood that institutions are the very bedrock of economic and social interaction. The analysis of institutions will fall into incoherence if we insist on seeing them as teleological rather than as instrumental. Once there, we must still understand the purposes that different individuals and collectivities ascribe to particular institutional set ups. In this careful book Ray Challen offers clear conceptual guidance to the study of economic institutions. He also shows us how one can undertake the analysis of institutional choice. The problem setting is water resources in eastern Australia. The lessons are profoundly international, and the approach is refreshingly promising.' - Daniel W. Bromley, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US Conventional economic analysis of property rights in natural resources is too narrow and restrictive to allow for effective comparisons between alternative institutional structures. In this book, a conceptual framework is developed for the analysis of these structures with illustrative application to the allocation of water resources.
Download or read book The Economics of Water Quality written by Naomi Zeitouni and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a number of prominent economic studies all of which deal with key water quality issues. The studies focus on the economic aspects of water quality including identifying the polluters' actions and incentives, designing and comparing control mechanisms, analyzing the costs and benefits of water quality programmes, and finally managing transboundary water quality. They all make recommendations for improving water quality through changing incentives, programmes and/or policies.
Download or read book A Transaction Cost Approach for Environmental Policy Analysis written by Marion Laurenceau and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research proposes a methodology to account for policy transaction costs and to assess how they condition the implementation of policy tasks. In light of an empirical analysis of the European Water Framework Directive implementation in 4 institutional contexts, this work (1) elaborates a typology of Policy Transaction Costs (PTC) determinants and (2) depicts stakeholders' strategies to cope with PTC ('arrangements'). We distinguish three main categories of arrangements: strategies to minimize either research and information collection costs, negotiation costs, or coordination costs. This research testifies that certain policy implementation decisions can be explained by the search for PTC minimization according to contextual determinants. Policy analysis shall thus consider PTC linked to policy implementation so as to anticipate (i) the constraints policy actors will face when implementing a given policy and (ii) how these actors are likely to respond to such constraints.
Download or read book Institutions Transaction Costs and Environmental Policy written by Ray Challen and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Declaring the conventional economic analysis of property rights in natural resources to be too narrow and restrictive to allow for effective comparisons between alternative institutional structures, Challen (agricultural and resource economics, U. of Western Australia) develops a conceptual framework for analyzing these structures, and illustrates them with applications to the allocation of water resources. His model analyzes the problems involved in institutional choice, taking into account constraints in institutional change imposed by history and the value of maintaining options in an uncertain future. It shifts the emphasis from assessing the benefits of particular property rights regimes in isolation to the distribution of property rights between levels of governments, communities, and individuals in an institutional hierarchy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book The Institutional Economics of Water written by R. Maria Saleth and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This outstanding new book provides the most detailed and comprehensive evaluation of water reform and water sector performance from the perspectives of institutional economics and political economy. Skilfully integrating institutional theory with resource economics, and set against an exhaustive review of the theoretical and empirical literature, the authors develop an alternative methodology to quantitatively assess the performance of institutions in the context of water. This methodology is built on the principle of 'institutional ecology', the 'institutional decomposition and analysis' framework, and the 'subjective theory' of institutional change. Using this new methodology, plus information collected through an international survey of 127 water experts, the authors present a detailed empirical analysis of the process of institution-performance interaction in the water sector. Relying on the institutional transaction cost approach and an extensive cross-country review of recent water sector reforms, they also provide evidence on the relative role of various factors which influence the extent and depth of water institutional reforms in 43 countries and regions around the world. The book concludes with far reaching implications for the theory and policy of water sector reform in particular and institutional reform in general. Unique and up-to-date, this book offers an authoritative review of the important linkages between institutions and performance both in general and water sector contexts. By laying the foundations for future research and policy in this field, it will be of particular relevance and value for institutional economists, natural resource and environmental economists, political scientists, policymakers, donor agencies and students and scholars working on water-related issues.
Download or read book Estimating Transaction Costs of Alternative Policies to Reduce Phosphorous Pollution in the MInnesota River written by Laura Mary Joy McCann and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Evaluating Transaction Costs of Alternative Policies to Reduce Agricultural Phosphorus Pollution in the Minnesota River written by Laura Mary Joy McCann and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Institutional Economics of Granting a River Legal Standing written by Julia Talbot-Jones and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The governance of water is of increasing concern to policy analysts. Several property rights systems, which allow for ownership of water by the individual, community, or state have been advocated, but no approach has been uniformly successful in resolving water quality or scarcity issues. In some cases, identifying alternative property rights arrangements for governing water systems could be useful. This research examines how a river system can be granted legal standing and the institutional economic effects of doing so. It is the first academic treatment of this subject. Focusing on the case of the Whanganui River, New Zealand, a careful critique of the new property rights arrangement - termed resource self-determination - is given. Using Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, game theory, and economic experiments, the economic and socio-ecological outcomes observed under state ownership are compared with the outcomes expected under resource self-determination. To understand how and why the new property rights approach was identified for the Whanganui River, a critical analysis of the institutional variables central to the identification of resource self-determination is also undertaken using a new dynamic version of the IAD framework developed as part of this research. The results of the study suggest that the implementation of resource self-determination is likely to result in an increase in transaction costs and a redistribution of water within the system, but that the new framework could successfully deliver on the objectives of the new legislation. For policy makers interested in replicating the approach for other river systems, words of caution, as well as recommendations, are offered.
Download or read book An Examination of the Consequences of Political Administrative and Legal Institutions on the Implementation and Performance of Environmental Policies written by Dale Buford Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transaction Costs Institutions and Economic Performance written by Douglass Cecil North and published by Ics Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Status of institutional reforms for integrated water resources management in Asia Indications from policy reviews in five countries written by Bandaragoda, D. J. and published by IWMI. This book was released on 2006-05-16 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Case studies were conducted in five selected Asian countries on their water policy reform initiatives. Of the five countries, China stands out as the country that has derived the most from on-going global efforts in promoting water sector institutional reforms and the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM). China has emerged as the leader in adapting these concepts to suit the context of the country. Advanced stages of water development in many parts of the country and increased water shortages due to rapid economic development have prompted China to forge ahead in the search for institutional solutions to make the water sector more productive, and the management of water resources more sustainable. In the other selected countries, efforts to replicate the models of developed countries without much adaptation and due reference to their stages of development have generally failed. The dominance of irrigation within the water sector and the informality of the economy related to water in these countries seem to make the application of prescribed IWRM principles rather unfeasible. The lesson to be drawn from policy reviews of the five countries is that effective waterinstitutions are not static systems, but are adaptive and dynamic institutional developments compatible with the local context, particularly with the structure of the overall economy of the country and its water sector.
Download or read book Staff Paper written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Implementation Costs of Agricultural Policies written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report suggest ways to reduce the costs of implementing and monitoring agricultural policies without compromising the aims of the policies.
Download or read book Marine and Coastal Ecosystem Valuation Institutions and Policy in Southeast Asia written by Nancy Olewiler and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-03 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a compendium of case studies illustrating how economic tools and techniques can be used to address a wide range of problems in the management and conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems in a developing country context. The studies, which were conducted with support from the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), cover topics such as mobilizing conservation finance from beneficiaries of marine and coastal ecosystem services; quantifying ecosystem damage and its impact on dependents of ecosystem resources and services; determining the best package of policy reforms that put a price on pollution and regulate economic activities generating pollution with the goal of restoring coastal and marine resources; and analyzing community-based institutions that support sustainable management of fisheries and coastal resources. Studies in the book also provide general guidelines for conducting economic appraisals. It is essential reading for teachers, researchers, students and practitioners in fishery economics, economic development, ecosystem management, and other key issues facing policymakers in the Southeast Asian region.
Download or read book Reforming Institutions in Water Resource Management written by Lin Crase and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2009 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Resolving these problems is crucial for the future.
