Re: AltInst: Marketable Wetlands

> >Permit wetlands owners to sell annual wetlands-support coupons,
> >based upon the size of the property and its suitability as a
> >nursery habitat. Shrimpers could buy the coupons, and redeem
> >them with the State fisheries licensing agency in return for a
> >discount on their commercial fishing licenses.
>
> A direct subsidy of wetlands, based also on size and suitability,
> would create the same incentives to preserve wetlands, while avoiding
> transaction costs of exchanging coupons. The coupons seems like
> useless make-work.

Of course, both of these solutions work fine in a free market as
well: there's nothing in the coupon arrangement that requires the
fishing license issuer to be a government; it could just as well
be the private owner of the waters in question, and he could use
the scheme to increase the value of the fishing rights he sold.
He too, though, would likely be better off just subsidizing
wetlands directly.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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