An Evaluation of Japanese Environmental Regulations-Quantitative Approaches from Environmental Economics

摘要

According to Arimura and Iwata, evaluations of environmental policies have a long history in Europe and the USA, while in Japan few regulations have been quantitatively evaluated. Their objective is to overcome this shortfall. The book is written for students and professionals and provides very detailed insights into selected environmental regulations and their economic evaluation in Japan. First, the book gives a brief introduction to environmental economics, policy instruments, and the specific tools and issues of environmental policy evaluations. Then follows an assessment of the costs and benefits of three different regulations in the transportation sector: the vehicle type regulation (VTR) restricting the life time of cars, the diesel particulate filters (DPF), and the discount rate for an expressway. The impact of a regulation in the hotel industry on energy use and of a GHG tax is presented next. Finally, the book discusses the impact on the assessment results of applying different economic models.