ENCS 473 - Environmental & Conservation Policy

Policy

describes a formal decision or plan of action adopted by an actor to achieve a particular goal; or… course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization, individual, or gov. body about how it intends to conduct its business, make decisions, achieves outcomes, or delivers services

Public policy

formal decision or plan of action that has been taken by, or has involved, a state organization. Concerned w/ processes by which govs make, implement, or avoid policies, actions they take to promote them , and outcomes they produce

Policy instruments

actions govs take to promote policies

Environmental policy

aimed at protecting the environment from harms generated by development, extraction, & consumption. 

Economic governance

processes that support economic activity & economic transactions by protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, and taking collective action to provide appropriate physical & organizational infrastructure

Property

a stream of benefits that flow from an asset or resource

Property rights

give the owner or right holder the ability to do w/ the property what they choose. Entail triadic relationships b/w right holders, duty holders, & social authorities that define & enforce rights & duties

collective action

occurs when a number of ppl work together to achieve some common objective

social institution

a set of formal rules (including constitutions), informal norms, or shared understandings that constrain & prescribe political actors’ interactions w/ one another. Rules in which we interact w/ each other

Comprehensive rationality

agencies are involved in decision making have all the info they need to make choices that are comprehensive, rational, & clear

Bounded rationality

describes how human decision-making is limited by cognitive constraints, time, and information, leading people to make decisions that are good enough (satisficing) rather than the absolute best (optimizing)

Hysteresis

Something that goes from point A to point B, doesn’t necessarily go back from B to A

Market failures

an inefficient allocation of resources that occurs when individuals acting in their own rational self-interest produce a sub-optimal outcome for society (reasons to follow)

Governance failures

failed or ineffective processes of governance by community, state, and / or private actors

Policy failures

policies that fail to achieve their stated objectives, often due to over-optimism, political sustainability/ time lags, poor design, poor implementation

Regulatory failures

regulations that fail to achieve their objectives, often due to regulatory evasion or regulatory capture

Regulations

rules designed to reduce or encourage certain pro-social outcomes

Regulatory evasion

Finding ways to get around or minimize effects of regulations

Regulatory capture

public regulatory agencies are influenced to develop or enforce regulations that favour those regulated, often due to the revolving door phenomena linking business & business regulation

Implementation failures

Failure to achieve intended outcomes by Incomplete specification of objectives, inappropriate agency for implementation, conflicting objectives w/n or b/w policies, incentive failures, conflicting directives from agencies or senior official, limited competence of agency or those tasked with/ implementing, inadequate administrative resources to support policy improvement

Pareto efficiency

When no one person can be made better off w/o making another person worse off

Distributive justice

fairness in the distribution of environmental benefits & outcomes

Procedural justice

fairness in the processes that resolve disputes & allocate resources

Representational justice

Self-determination or marginalized ppl and groups to speak for themselves, not have their stories told by others

Environmental justice

fair treatment & meaningful involvement of all ppl w/ respect to the development, implementation, & enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, & policies

Consumer surplus

Amount consumer is willing to pay for a unit of good, minus the cost of that unit of the good, summed over all units consumed where price is lesser or equal to willingness to pay. Measure of consumer welfare.

Producer surplus

Profit for an individual company equals amount producer receives from selling each unit of the good, minus the cost of producing each unit, summed over all units produced. Measure of producer welfare

Volunteerism

Assumes that polluters will prevent pollution in order to be or be seen as good corporate citizens

Command-and-control Regulations

Direct regulation of an industry or activity by legislation that states what is permitted & what is not. (pollution standards: ambient, emission, and technology standards)

Pigouvian tax

Impose a fee on pollution

Permitting

Allows certain person / legal entity to do certain activity, up to a certain extent, subject to conditions. May be free, a certain price, or auctioned

Willingness to Pay (WTP)

max price that a customer is wiling to pay for product or service

Willingness to Accept (WTAC)

refers to measure of the additional amount of income an individual is willing to receive in order to be compensated for a potential increase in the damage level or external costs

Polluted pay

IS S has full property right to produce, it will produce at s*. R has incentive to pay S to reduce production (and thus pollution). The amount R is willing to pay declines, while amount S is willing to accept reduces, with each unit of lower production until WTP & WTAC are equal at the social optimum

Polluter pay

If R has property right to clean environment, its private optimum will be for 0 pollution and 0 s. S has incentive to pay R to allow production. The amount S is willing to pay for each unit declines, while the amount R is willing to accept increases, until WTP & WTAC are equal at the social optimum

Coase theorem

the initial assignment of property rights does not affect the actual amount of pollution & production, provided property rights are well-defined, & agents are free to trade, w/o cost. However, the welfare consequences can be different. Likely depends on bargaining power of the polluted & the polluter

Coase’s converse

Initial allocation of property rights will affect the outcome of& the distribution of well-being if property rights are costly to define and / or if there are costs to trade

Private Property

A resource & its benefits are used by a well defined individual or other legal entity. The social authority protects the rights of the individual from others who might want to infringe on those rights

Open access

There are no defined property rights to a shared resource. It is open to anything potential user who wants to access the resource & take advantage of the benefit streams that it generates

Common property

Members of a defined group hold co-equal rights to access the resource, & use the benefit streams that it generates. Rules of access & use are defined by the group & imposed on members of the group

State property

the resource is owned by the state (on behalf of its citizens), and the state defines & enforces rules about who may access & use the resource for what purpose

Pareto optimal

the well-being of any one person can’t be increased w/o decreasing the well-being of at least one other

Pareto superior change

the well-being of at least one person can be increased w/o reducing the well-being of anyone else

Kaldor-Hicks optimal

Used in benefit-cost analysis: those who gain from a change gain more than enough to offset the losses of those who lose regardless of whether the transfers from gainers to losers actually happens

Cost effective

The lowest cost way to achieve an objective specified in non-welfare terms (eg species conservation, air quality standard). (Cost effectiveness analysis tends to be more acceptable;e than benefit-cost analysis)

Fairness

Another utilitarian criteria (based on willingness ton pay for consuming good & services

Equity

In some circumstances , ppl need to be treated differently in order to provide meaningful equality of opportunity. Tends to focus on procedural justice

Equality

Law & gov treats everyone the same, irrespective of their status or identity. Tends to focus on distributive justice

Equal liberty

Everyone is entitled to basic freedoms - speech, liberty, pursuit of happiness, fair value of political liberties - that are consistent with the liberty of all others. (focus on equity in rights, may be defined by constitution

Difference principle

social & economic inequalities in society are acceptable as long as the situation of the worst off improves. Focus on equality, may result from policy implementation