Policy-mixes for the agri-environment

The OECD study on Instrument Mixes for Environmental Policy (2007d) provides a comprehensive treatment of the economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness of using an instrument-mix rather than a single policy instrument. The main arguments for using instrument-mixes are: i) many environmental issues are multifaceted so that not only the amount of emissions, but also where emissions take place and when they occur are relevant ii) many instruments can mutually strengthen each other and iii) sometimes instrument-mixes can also enhance enforcement and reduce policy related transaction costs. However, there are also reasons for restricting the number of instruments in the mix. For example, when several instruments are applied in the mix there could be danger that one instrument hampers flexibility to find low-cost solutions to a problem that another instrument could have offered if it had been implemented on its own. And there are cases where some of the instruments in a mix are redundant and only increase total PRTCs (OECD, 2007d).

Guidelines for Cost-effective Agri-environmental Policy Measures

Policy-mixes for the agri-environment

overview of design parameters