GESTÃO DOS RECURSOS HÍDRICOS: A Contribuição da NEI e do Direito e Economia -Ihering Guedes Alcoforado
O livro de Ronald C. Griffin, Water Resource Economics: The Analysis of Scarcity, (2006) traz uma grata surpresa no seu tópico 4, uma boa introdução ao papel das “Social Institutions”, a partir do enquadramento analítico da “institutional economics” e “water law”
O autor se orienta pela seguinte questão: How might our rules help us achieve our goals?” Na busca desta resposta ressalta a relevância do approach institucional:
“The stage is well set to now consider the institutions that guide water use. Water management institutions are seriously intertwined with all aspects of water planning, including project analysis. Indeed, it is difficult to craft any good public decisions for water until one understands the many institutional features and options that are present.”
Sob orientação do approach institucionalista afirma que:
[….] the primary objective is to search for institutions that enhance effciency. Economics o¤ers exceptional insights when the water management task is to select, modify, or interpret institutions, as is often the situation.”
E, adentrando no campo da nova econocima institucional, chama atenção que
“ The term ‘‘institutions’’ has a different meaning than ‘‘organizations’’ in economic parlance: ‘‘Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interaction. They consist of both informal constraints (sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions, and codes of conduct), and formal rules (constitutions, laws, property rights)’’ (North 1991, 97; North earned a Nobel Memorial Prize in 1993 for his contributions to institutional economics).”
E avança na qualificação das instituições
“Thus, institutions are the informal and formal rules forming the ‘‘system of mutual coercion’’ by which humans relate to one another (Samuels 1972, 64). Thought of another way, ‘‘institutions are sets of ordered relationships among people which define their rights, exposure to the rights of others, privileges, and responsibilities’’ (Schmid 1972, 893).”
E, sem tirar o mérito da clivagem entre instituições formais e informais, registro a falha de não ter se referido ao texto de Williamson, . no qual é estabelecido a tipologia canônica dos nivies institucionais no âmbito da nova economia institucional, frame com que o autor opera, o que fica evidenciado na afirmação abaixo, na qual reconhece a centralidade da escolha envolvendo as instituições de mercado e preço: .
“ Institutions are the instruments we employ to avoid chaos, standardize our interactions, and promote human welfare. The economy is an important part of this system. As ‘‘humanly devised’’ methods for people to interact with one another, the notions of markets and prices are important institutions, both in general application and for water management. Every policy that can be applied to water management problems is also an institution. Hence, institutional choice is highly relevant to us.” p.99/100
Ao reconhecer a existência de uma concorrência entre os diferentes marcos institucionais, detalha as formas disponíveis de propriedade:
In the absence of more specific information, it will be di‰cult to select a preferred institutional regime for managing X, but it is possible to lay out four fundamental alternatives. The initial institutional setting described for X is one of open access. An open access resource […] A common property resource […] A state property resource […] The fourth and final category of rule forms is private property. A private property resource.” 101/103
E arremata:
Returning to substance X, which is now resource X because we have discovered human uses for it, what institutional structure should we select? The primary choice is between common property, state property, and private property, but that is a simplification. There are a great many variations of common property, and they are too numerous to contemplate” 105
Um outro aspecto é que como a escolha da estrutura institucional é orientada pela busca da eficiência a qual tem como referência um contexto natural mutante, a eficiência ainda que restrita a dimensão alocativa, não pode ser estabelecida de forma estática, mas de maneira dinâmica e isto tem um custo:
“ Because water users must make capital expenditures on conveyances as well as water-processing and water-using equipment, it’s appropriate for institutions to have some stability so as to limit water users’ uncertainty
about their future access to water. […] Because institutional change is a dynamic choice then, it is rational to request dynamic efficiency in institutional selection. Given this, it is reasonable to think that each rule change should maximize NPV. [105
Em resumo, do ponto de vista da economia institucional “The major problem in seeking dynamic efficiency in institutional change is that it is so difficult to assess”, o que pode ser obtido a partir da mobilização dos recursos na water law, enquandrada na perspectiva do frame d Direito e Economia (Law and Economics)
BIBLIOGRAFIA
GRIFFIN, Ronald C., Water Resource Economics: The Analysis of Scarcity, Policies, and Projects. The MIT Press.2006