Timing and distributional aspects of transaction costs in Transferable Development Rights programmes

Planners are required to evaluate planning policy instruments to develop a better understanding of how they can improve their policy design and implementation processes. Transferable Development Rights (TDR) programmes are one of the market-based policy instruments that have attracted considerable attention among planners and economists. Given that TDR programmes have been introduced as an alternative to traditional regulatory instruments in several jurisdictions on the basis that their implementation will result in better policy outcomes, evaluation of these alternative programmes is particularly important. Like all policy instruments, the activities concerned with the design and implementation of TDR programmes may involve significant transaction costs. These activities can be considered as a series of transactions from the perspective of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). While transaction costs are expected to vary across the lifecycle of a policy instrument, up to now there have been no systematic research studies concerned with why, and how, such transaction costs occur and are distributed among parties involved in different phases of TDR programmes. In order to aid better design and implementation of TDR programmes, this paper analyses the effects of transaction costs throughout the life of four TDR programmes (Calvert, Montgomery, St. Mary's, and Charles Counties) in the US state of Maryland in order to gain a better understanding of the timing and distribution of such costs incurred by different parties involved

Social and Political Responses to Ecological Tax Reform in Europe: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This paper introduces the special issue on the Policies for Ecological Tax Reform: Assessment of Social Responses (PETRAS) project about responses to ecological tax reform (ETR) in Europe. Although ETR is widely accepted to be a policy with desirable effects, its implementation has been limited by problems of political acceptability. The project aimed to address the question of how to make such a policy more acceptable. It is the first study to examine in depth the thinking of members of the general public about the ETR policies and is also the first international comparative study of the thinking of ordinary business people about ETR policies. The PETRAS project methodology was based around the use of interviews and focus groups to inform the assessment of social responses to ETR policies and the development of improved designs for them. A number of issues emerged relating to awareness, trust, understanding of the purpose, visibility, incentives, regressivity, levels of taxation, terminology, communication about ETR and the use of alternative instruments. Together with these similarities, a pattern of differences between the countries can also be seen. The final section of this paper introduces the national studies described in the following papers

Environmental policy reform in the EU

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(99/06) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Reconciling rapid economic growth and environmental sustainability in Ireland

The Barrington prize lecture 2000/2001Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(01/01) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Why should we value the environment and how can we do it?

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(99/03) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Assessing the social efficiency of temperate-zone commercial forestry programmes

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(99/01) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Housing standards and excess winter mortality in Ireland

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(99/02) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

The benefits of residential energy conservation in Ireland in the light of the Luxembourg Agreement and the Gothenburg Protocol

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3791.6895(99/04) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo