Markets, the state, and the environment

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.