Crafting the Next Generation of Market-Based Environmental Tools

摘要

The next generation of environmental policy will require innovative tools and strategies to meet both present and future challenges. Market-based instruments are one such tool. These instruments are by no means new. They have been part of the environmental policy landscape (though with varying degrees of prominence) for the past two decades because they are attractive in both theory and practice. But market-based instruments have generally failed to meet the great expectations that we have had for them. As a result, they now lie only on the periphery of environmental policy. Does this represent yet another breakdown between theory and practice? Was the effort to transform environmental regulations with these tools nothing more than tilting at windmills, and is it time to return to more established—if expensive—policy mechanisms?