Policy Instrument Choice Textbook

Policy Instrument Choice Textbook

Gnarly Tree Sustainability Institute team members Kenneth Richards and Stephanie Hayes Richards are presently completing a textbook that provides a new approach to understanding environmental policy instruments. The framework draws on an integrated approach to the analysis of policy instruments, blending the analytical models of environmental economics with findings from public administration, New Institutional Economics, public finance, sociology, regulatory and constitutional law, and political economics. Whereas other analyses generally compare and contrast key features or impacts of specific policy instruments, the framework provides a structure to explore the relationships among the instruments. The result is a richer concept of “policy instrument space” rather than assigning instruments to discrete categories. The new framework employs a constrained cost-minimization approach that facilitates an understanding of the trade-offs among the many criteria within the feasibility constraints that policymakers face. The textbook will also include approximately 200 examples to illustrate issues in environmental policy instrument choice and design as well as several case studies comparing instrument choice in different environmental applications.  This resource builds upon and refines previous work by Dr. Richards, published in the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, that has guided his academic research and consulting work for nearly two decades.

Services: Policy Instrument Choice and Design