Voluntary Approaches in Environmental Policy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

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2. Introduction: The Rationale and Potential of Voluntary Approaches

   • Carlo Carraro, François Lévêque

   Pages 1-15

3. Externalities, Collective Goods and the Requirement of a State’s Intervention in Pollution Abatement

   • François Lévêque

   Pages 17-26

4. Environmental Regulation Through Voluntary Agreements

   • Lars Gårn Hansen

   Pages 27-54

5. Voluntary Agreements in Environmental Policy: Negotiating Emission Reductions

   • Dirk Schmelzer

   Pages 55-74

6. The Cost Efficiency of Voluntary Agreements for Regulating Industrial Pollution: A Coasean Approach

   • Matthieu Glachant

   Pages 75-89

7. Can Austrian Economics Provide a New Approach to Environmental Policy?

   • Ferry Stocker

   Pages 91-103

8. Voluntary Approaches to Environmental Protection: The Role of Legislative Threats

   • Kathleen Segerson, Thomas J. Miceli

   Pages 105-120

9. Environmental Industrial Regulation and the Private Codes Question

   • Gérard Mondello

   Pages 121-136

10. The Influence of Information-Based Initiatives and Negotiated Environmental Agreements on Technological Change

    • Nicholas A. Ashford

    Pages 137-150

11. A Dynamic Model of Environmental Policies. The Case of Innovation Oriented Voluntary Agreements

    • F. Aggeri, A. Hatchuel

    Pages 151-185

12. Voluntary Agreements with Industry

    • Mark Storey, Gale Boyd, Jeff Dowd

    Pages 187-207

13. Voluntary Agreements as an Instrument to Substitute Regulating and Economic Instruments. Lessons from the German Voluntary Agreements on CO2 Reduction

    • Eberhard Jochem, Wolfgang Eichhammer

    Pages 209-227

14. Voluntary Approaches, the Environment and the Law: A Canadian Perspective

    • Kernaghan Webb, Andrew Morrison

    Pages 229-259

15. Back Matter

    Pages 261-265

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In recent years, voluntary approaches to emission reductions have increasingly been adopted by major companies all over the world and have increasingly been supported by regulatory bodies and public administrations. Despite this world-wide effort to achieve a better environmental performance through voluntary approaches, economic analysis has somehow neglected the importance of voluntary approaches as an environmental policy instrument. This book is a first attempt to fill this gap by gathering together all major experts in the fields and by providing a detailed analysis of all main aspects characterising the design and implementation of voluntary approaches in environmental policy. The book, which is the outcome of cooperation between the École des Mines of Paris and the Fondazione ENI E. Mattei, within the EU Concerted Action on Market Based Policy Instruments for Environmental Protection, contains both theoretical analyses and case studies. The chapters of this book therefore provide a useful assessment of the main features and of the potential implementation problems of a new, important and promising environmental policy instrument.

• European Union (EU)
• environment
• environmental policy
• environmental protection
• pollution
• regulation

From the reviews:

"Carlo Carraro and François Lévêque’s book is one of the first wide-ranging and serious endeavors to delineate voluntary approaches, analyze their effectiveness, explore the possibilities to enhance their performance, and explain the rationale for voluntary compliance by different stakeholders. … strongly recommend this book to graduate students, environmental policy scholars, policy practitioners, and those in the private sector interested in the adoption of voluntary approaches. The book provides researchers and stakeholders with theoretical and methodological tools for exploring the conditions under which voluntary agreements work." (Lada Kochtcheeva Dunbar, International Environmental Agreements, Vol. 8, 2008)

• University of Venice, Italy

  Carlo Carraro

• Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Milan, Italy

  Carlo Carraro

• École des Mines, Paris, France

  François Lévêque

François Lévêque is professor of Law and Economics at the Ecole des mines de Paris. His academic, teaching and consulting interests are in the areas of environmental policy, antitrust and regulation. His research focuses on the assessment of policy instruments (e.g., access charges for railways, transmission tariffs, eco-taxes, co-venants) and policy reforms (e.g., gas and electricity French and European laws, EU deregulation in railways and airlines industries).

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