Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/205507 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2003
Series/Report no.: 
New Zealand Treasury Working Paper No. 03/02
Publisher: 
New Zealand Government, The Treasury, Wellington
Abstract: 
This paper is intended to lay out a preliminary foundation for applying a property rights perspective to environmental policy issues facing New Zealand. It does not attempt to apply such an approach to any specific issue. Rather it summarises the core principles behind effective rights regimes (illustrated by the evolution of rights over time), reviews how such regimes have been applied to environmental issues internationally, and describes current natural resource rights regimes in New Zealand. The purpose of applying property rights to the environment can vary widely and reflect quite different perspectives. Regulation by any form, however, whether command-and-control or market-based, creates or modifies property rights. While private property rights will not always be appropriate, the alternatives redefine and reallocate rights rather than eliminating them. A common or public property right remains a right held by someone. The choice is not therefore whether to modify property rights to improve environmental outcomes, but how to do so in a way that optimises national welfare. However, if more use of market-based instruments is appropriate, then the work required to create the legal, institutional and scientific framework to successfully implement them (including trading off social, economic and environmental outcomes) should not be under-estimated. Fishing and water rights demonstrate these difficulties and the payoff (for fisheries at least) that can be achieved.
Subjects: 
Property Rights
Transferability
Market Based Instruments (MBI)
Environmental Policy
New Zealand
JEL: 
D23
H23
P14
Q15
Q24
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
448.01 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.