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Ceremonial Dimensions of Market-Based Pollution Control Instruments: The Clean Air Act and the Cap-and-Trade Model

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Abstract

Market-based pollution control instruments represent the influence of a commitment to the principle of laissez-faire economics and the success of orthodox economics to steer public policy formation. The criteria for design and assessment of policy interventions however should not be influenced by a prior commitment to a problem-solving strategy. Rather, the inquiry guiding policy design and assessment should be guided by the recognition of social, ecological, and technological interdependence and by the discovery of evaluative criteria consistent with this interdependence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Theories of institutional change and social valuation in the Original Institutional Economics tradition derive from the work of Thorstein Veblen, Clarence Ayres, Karl Polanyi, John R. Commons, and John Dewey. Of immediate interest are refinements by contemporary institutionalists Marc R. Tool, James Swaney, and Paul Dale Bush, and the development by F. Gregory Hayden of the means for policy evaluation and planning. In contrast to the orthodox economists’ focus on a narrow conception of efficiency as the value criterion for public policy, most institutionalists identify an alternative value principle: “the continuity of human life and the noninvidious re-creation of community through the instrumental use of knowledge” (Tool 1979:300). Such a principle recognizes the complex and evolving needs of the life process in an integrated community; asserts the ongoing need for inquiry directed toward these needs; and implies the importance of participatory democracy as the means to maintain open inquiry and provide a countervailing check on the capacity of elites to capture the inquiry process (O’Hara and Tool 1998:7–8query). For an introduction to this literature the reader might begin with Hayden (1982a:637–644) and Bush (1988:1078–1086) for a concise history of the evolution of Veblen’s dichotomy, and Tool (2001/1979) for an early and full treatment of a theory of social valuation. O’Hara and Tool (1998:9–15), in a volume recognizing the contributions of Paul Dale Bush, provide a concise statement of the theory of institutional change.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Minnesota State University, Moorhead, MN, USA

    Steven R. Bolduc

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  1. Steven R. Bolduc
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Michael's College, Colchester, 05439, U.S.A.

    Tara Natarajan

  2. FB Wirtschaftsfwissenschaften, Universität Bremen, Hochschulring 4, Bremen, 28359, Germany

    Wolfram Elsner

  3. Wartburg College, Wartburg Blvd. 100, Waverly, 50677, U.S.A.

    Scott Fullwiler

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Bolduc, S.R. (2009). Ceremonial Dimensions of Market-Based Pollution Control Instruments: The Clean Air Act and the Cap-and-Trade Model. In: Natarajan, T., Elsner, W., Fullwiler, S. (eds) Institutional Analysis and Praxis. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88741-8_12

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