Environmental Policy, Public Interest and Political Market

In this article, we highlight the factors which influence governments in their decision to implement environmental policies of varying degrees of severity. We substantiate our arguments with analytical evidence from public interest theory and the economic theory of regulation (“interest group theory”). We demonstrate, through empirical analysis based on the policies of the 22 most developed OECD countries, that pressure groups have sufficient impact on environmental regulation for us to be sure that economic theory outweighs public interest theory.