New Instruments for Environmental Policy: A Perspective

Abstract

In the post‐war years of fast economic growth extensive government regulations to curb growing environmental problems were developed in most Western countries. This regulative activity was directed primarily at larger fixed industrial installations with locally identifiable environmental effects. Since then, however, smaller and mobile sources, which are more difficult to regulate effectively, have increased their share in pollution. Now the scale of environmental problems has also changed from being mainly a local one to being a regional, a national, an international and even a global one. Examples of this are the diffusion of durable toxic substances, eutrophication, acid rain, depletion of the higher ozone layers, and the rising temperature of the atmosphere. Moreover, perceived social costs of environmental policy and other types of regulation have risen, inspiring a worldwide movement towards deregulation and privatisation. So there is ample reason to reconsider the instruments of environmental policy used so far and to look for ways to amend environmental effectiveness and social costs. In section I some of the directions which the search for improved instruments might take are identified and in the subsequent sections certain financial, social and product‐oriented instruments are analysed in more detail.

Citation

Huppes, G. (1988), "New Instruments for Environmental Policy: A Perspective", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 15 No. 3/4, pp. 42-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014102