The Institutional Blind Spot in Environmental Economics

Bibliographic Data

ID9684902
AuthorsDallas Burtraw (0000-0002-2119-6984, Czech Academy of Sciences, Economics Institute, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume142
Issue1
Pages110-118
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDaedalus (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-5266 • E-ISSN: 1548-6192
PublisherMIT Press - Journals (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1162/daed_a_00188
OpenAlexW2111339250
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited3

Economic approaches are expected to achieve environmental goals at less cost than traditional regulations, but they have yet to find widespread application. One reason is the way these tools interact with existing institutions. The federalist nature of governmental authority assigns to subnational governments much of the implementation of environmental policy and primary authority for planning the infrastructure that affects environmental outcomes. The federalist structure also interacts with the choice of economic instruments; a national emissions cap erodes the additionality of actions by subnational governments. Even the flagship application of sulfur dioxide emissions trading has been outperformed by the venerable Clean Air Act, and greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are on course to be less than they would have been if Congress had frozen emissions with a cap in 2009. The widespread application of economic tools requires a stronger political theory of how they interact with governing institutions

Additionality · Air pollution · Business · Clean Air Act · Economics · Emissions trading · Environmental economics · Federalist · Greenhouse gas · Natural resource economics · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Ecology · Energy, Environment, and Transportation Policies · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access