Pollution and Property: Comparing Ownership Institutions for Environmental Protection

by Daniel H. Cole

• ISBN13: 9780521001090
• ISBN10: 0521001099
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Environmental protection and resource conservation depend on the imposition of property rights (broadly defined) because in the absence of some property system - private, common, or public - resource degradation and depletion are inevitable. But there is no universal, first-best property regime for environmental protection in this second-best world. Using case studies and examples taken from countries around the world, Professor Cole demonstrates that the choice of ownership institution is contingent upon institutional, technological, and ecological circumstances that determine the differential costs of instituting, implementing, and maintaining alternative regimes. Consequently, environmental protection is likely to be more effective and more efficient in a society that relies on multiple (and often mixed) property regimes. The book concludes with an assessment of the important contemporary issue of 'takings', which arise when different property regimes collide.

Author Biography

Daniel H. Cole is M. Dale Palmer Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis, where he teaches and writes about the law and economics of property, natural resources and environmental protection.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Table of government documents	xiii
Pollution and property: the conceptual framework	1	(19)
Public property/regulatory solutions to the tragedy of open access	20	(25)
Mixed property/regulatory regimes for environmental protection	45	(22)
Institutional and technological limits of mixed property/regulatory regimes	67	(18)
The theory and limits of free-market environmentalism (a private property/nonregulatory regime)	85	(25)
The limited utility of common property regimes for environmental protection	110	(20)
The complexities of property regime choice for environmental protection	130	(24)
When property regimes collide: the ``takings'' problem	154	(24)
Final thoughts	178	(2)
List of references	180	(22)
Index	202