The green inside activist in the game of regulatory capture: an alternative to acquiring property rights?

The phenomenon of green inside activism (GIA) is experiencing increasing interest, both in the academic world and in the public debate. GIA is a theoretical concept intended to capture the political agency of public officials who are ideologically committed to green values and work to promote them from within an agency. This article examines the economic implications of GIA from a public choice perspective. Building on e.g. Mancur Olson's theory of institutional sclerosis, Gordon Tullock's analysis of monopoly (the Tullock rectangle) and George Stigler's analysis of regulatory capture, the article addresses several issues of GIA within regulatory agencies, using the forest industry as an example. Among the issues to be addressed are the questions of: who will win and who will lose from GIA; how does GIA relate to the more familiar concepts of rent-seeking and regulatory capture; what institutional characteristics make an agency vulnerable to GIA?