The objective of this book is to analyze the institutional barriers to implementing market-based climate policy, as well as to provide some opportunities to overcome them. The approach is that of institutional economics, with special emphasis on political transaction costs and path dependence.

Instead of rejecting the neoclassical approach, this book uses it where fruitful and shows when and why it is necessary to employ a new or neo-institutionalist approach. The result is that equity is considered next to efficiency, that the evolution and possible lock-in of both formal and informal...