L’émergence du marché de la compensation des zones humides aux États-Unis: Impacts sur les modes d’organisation et les caractéristiques des transactions

Abstract

In the United States, the Clean Water Act requires compensatory measures for aquatic ecosystems damaged by development projects. From the 90’s to improve the quality of the system, we have seen the emergence of a market system to supervise the transactions related to the implementation of actions for compensation. The theoretical framework of neo-institutional economics states that the choice of the organization of a transaction is based on the minimization of transaction costs. These costs are related to the coordination mechanisms that are specific to each type of organization and which efficiency – in terms of transaction costs – depends on the characteristics of the transaction: asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency of the transactions. Transactions related to compensation involve a significant investment in natural capital – the aquatic ecosystem – to produce an environmental gain equivalent in quality and quantity, to the losses related to the damage. The application of the neo-institutional theory to the study of these transactions allows us to show that these transactions have original characteristics that require organizational modes of hybrid forms. The desire to include the compensation in a trading system involves an alignment of the characteristics of transactions with a risk reduction of the specificity of natural capital. Therefore it is necessary to maintain a strong regulatory system to ensure the quality of the compensation