ABSTRACT
The new aspects of environmental degradation pose a serious challenge to environmental economists, despite the fact that the origin of the phenomena presumably depends more on the characteristics than on the intensity of economic growth. Traditional environmental economics seems to take a simplified approach to the two major questions: the selection of environmental objectives and how to implement them. Environmental economists often propose an over-simplified view of the means to attain the objectives, whether Pigouvian or Coasian. Institutional failures may reverse some of the main conclusions of the Coasian perspective. Many cases of institutional failure, ranging from the problem of defining property rights to environmental resources, to the problem of actuating environmental policy in a reasonable time, not only fail to solve the externality, but create inertia in decision-making, aggravating environmental damage and increasing its irreversibility. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
