Title: Implementing environmental quality standards via collective projects in the French CTE procedure

Authors: Charilaos Kephaliacos, Patrice Robin

Addresses: Laboratoire Dynamiques Rurales, UMR/ENFA-UTM-ENSAT, Toulouse, France ENFA, BP 87, 31 326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France. ' Laboratoire Dynamiques Rurales, UMR/ENFA-UTM-ENSAT, Toulouse, France ENFA, BP 87, 31 326 Castanet-Tolosan Cedex, France

Abstract: Since 1999, in France, a new public intervention scheme called ||CTE|| has been proposed to farmers. Inside this contractual scheme, economic agents may coordinate collectively to jointly attain traditional economic objectives and environmental targets through collective projects. We are interested in the reduction of transaction costs that these projects may bring to the private and public objectives in view. We use the tools of Economics of Transactions Costs in order to analyse the features of transactions under the contract ||CTE||. Particular attention is drawn to the role of jointures that characterise the production of agricultural market goods and of different public environmental goods and services. We illustrate the analysis using three cases of collective projects as examples.

Keywords: transaction costs; contract; local public environmental goods; jointure; assets specificity; environmental quality; agriculture.

DOI: 10.1504/IJARGE.2004.004642

International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology, 2004 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.1 - 10

Published online: 26 May 2004 *

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