Transaction Costs and Environmental Policy: An Assessment Framework and Literature Review

This article develops a framework for environmental policy analysis based on an encompassing assessment of transaction costs. This approach emphasizes the <italic>ex ante</italic> costs of establishing environmental entitlements, and the <italic>ex post</italic> costs of administrating, monitoring, and enforcing them. The framework is used to organize a literature review which addresses policy design and instrument choice, as well as optimal environmental policy-making and benefit-cost analysis. The review also considers the empirical literature on transaction costs associated with environmental policy-making, and current practices to record some categories of transaction costs in regulatory impact assessments. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for environmental policy analysis.