A Possibility for Multilateral CDM Projects in Northeast Asia - The reduction effect in transaction cost by Korean participation -

동북아시아지역의 다국 간 CDM프로젝트에 대한 검토 -한국 참가에 따른 거래비용 삭감효과-

CDM(Clean Development Mechanism) project is said to be a mechanism, which profits both the investing country and the host country, while additionally contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gases of the earth as a whole. However in reality, most of the proposed projects do not end up in agreement because of the problems related to differences in recognition between the investing country and the host country of the CDM project. This outlines the background for this research which proposes a new design of institutional arrangements of CDM projects in the Northeast Asian region, mainly Japan, China and Korea. In addition, we investigate the feasibility of the proposed design. The research firstly focuses on the reduction in transaction costs that the participation of Korea will have on a Japan-China CDM project. This paper further emphasizes the potential gains that would materialize if a CDM project involved the whole Northeast Asian region, and not only one country. Our research suggests that an approximate reduction of 23% in transaction costs, and about 4% reduction in the total costs of a CDM project can be expected to follow the Korean participation. In addition to decreasing costs we find that a Korean involvement in a CDM project with Japan will lead to efficiency gains illustrated by a higher increase in the IRR(Internal rate of return) in a Japan-Korea project(11.45% to 12.21%) compared to an IRR incresement of 10.57% to 11.27% for a pure Japanese CDM project. Similar results of a rise in the IRR is found for the whole investment period of 20 years. We can hence conclude that Korean participation in a Japan-China CDM project would improve the implementation possibilities of CDM project in the Northeast Asia region.