This paper sheds light on the cases of delay, in some cases interruptions and cancellations of criteria, that followed the adoption of ecological fiscal transfers (EFT) by Brazilian states. Using the transaction costs-politics framework to analyze the policy-making process, the central argument is that state legislatives are likely to weight benefits and costs at the formulation stage. At the implementation stage, legislatives delegate the role of refining EFT procedures to state agencies and, as such, increase the costs they incur. The empirical design is based on a set of case-studies, collecting data using questionnaires devised to describe the time-lags and the interruptions and cancellations of environmental criteria. The findings provide evidence of the presence of gridlocks in the formulation stage and delegation problems in the political-bureaucratic relationship at the implementation stage. Also, the absence of a gradual increase to implement the percentage dedicated to ecological criteria in each state is likely to explain the delays in the implementation of EFT schemes. In the end, we recommend flexibility in the design of scheme and the involvement of political actors in the policy process of adopting EFT.

本文阐明了在巴西各州采用生态财政转移支付（EFT）之后出现的一些延误情况，有时甚至是标准的中断和取消。使用交易成本政治框架来分析决策过程，中心论点是，州立法机构很可能在制定阶段就权衡收益和成本。在实施阶段，立法机构将完善电子转帐程序的职责委托给国家机构，因此增加了其产生的成本。实证设计基于一组案例研究，使用旨在描述时滞以及环境标准的中断和取消的问卷调查收集数据。这些发现提供了在制定阶段存在僵局以及在执行阶段存在政治官僚关系下放问题的证据。同样，在每个州都没有逐步增加用于实施生态标准的百分比的情况，很可能可以解释在实施EFT计划方面的延迟。最后，我们建议在设计方案时要保持灵活性，并建议政治参与者参与采用电子转帐的政策过程。