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Environmental Policy Bonds

Environmental Policy Bonds. Injecting market incentives into the achievement of local, national and global environmental goals. Environmental Policy Bonds (EPBs ). EPBs do not bear interest Redeemable for fixed sum once objective has been achieved Government sets objective

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Environmental Policy Bonds

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  1. Environmental Policy Bonds Injecting market incentives into the achievement of local, national and global environmental goals

  2. Environmental Policy Bonds (EPBs) • EPBs do not bear interest • Redeemable for fixed sum once objective has been achieved • Government sets objective • Issues EPBs by auction

  3. Example: cleaning up a lake • Local authority sets objective • concentration of pollutants, fish numbers, etc • Local authority will redeem EPBs for $10 each when lake is clean • Sell for $2 when floated • Prospect of capital gain motivates people to clean up lake

  4. How Bond prices change

  5. Motivation • Bond price will rise as targeted goal becomes closer • Bondholders benefit from this price rise • Bondholders invest in lake-cleaning projects • Bondholders can sell Bonds at any time

  6. Cascading incentives Bondholders have incentives to: • pay people and firms to pollute less • pay environmental groups to clean up • invest in lake-cleaning projects and technology • ensure that existing laws against pollution are enforced • co-operate with each other

  7. Advantages (1) • Efficiency • Tradability injects incentives to be efficient at all stages • Bond prices generate valuable information • Encouragenew activities • More responsive to events and local situations

  8. Advantages (2) • Transparency about goals increases political support • Transparency of costs makes trade-offs clearer • Stable objectives • Flexibility to cope with uncertainty

  9. Potential disadvantage • Incentives to achieve targeted objective at the expense of others • Solution: • Specify objective carefully • Enforce existing legislation • Target broad outcomes

  10. EPBs: when they work best • to achieve broad objectives • many sources of pollution • sources and scientific knowledge changing rapidly • uncertain causes

  11. EPBs: summary • Government sets objective • Government is ultimate source of finance • Bondholders achieve objective • Bondholders have market incentives to be efficient

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