Book Description
Markets, the State and the Environment advances the sustainable development debate by critically examining the range of tools for environmental protection available to governments, including direct regulation, market-based incentives, privatisation, and the encouragement of self-regulation. In the past, environmental policy debates have often been polarised into a simple contest between bureaucratic regulation and market-based measures. Markets, the State and the Environment transcends these outmoded debates to develop a more comprehensive set of principles and recommendations to guide environmental policy makers. The various instruments for environmental protection are assessed by different contributors against a broad range of criteria: environmental effectiveness, efficiency, democratic participation, and social equity. Further, the shift towards increasingly more open and global markets is considered for its effect on environmental policy. This book has a wide-ranging focus. It takes stock of developments in environmental management in Europe, USA and Australia.