Authors: Lars-Gunnar Mattsson; Stefanos Mouzas
The present paper examines the role of market infrastructures in the pursuit of sustainability. We assume, first that sustainable development depends on interaction between policy practice and market practice and second, that market infrastructures are co-created, maintained and changed by policy actors and market actors. Market infrastructure is the institutional, material and immaterial base that enables and conditions market exchange. Although market infrastructures are critical to the success of adopted policies for sustainable development, understanding and use of the concept in analysis and in policy and market practices aimed at sustainable development is quite limited. The role of market infrastructures in market economies is of general interest but, as the empirical phenomenon, we refer to public policies following the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Paris Agreement contains framework of policies aimed at making the global economy carbon neutral in the second half of the 21st century. As we stand today, policymakers around the globe are translating the mandatory and default rules agreed into fine-print policies for specific sectors of the economy, such as energy, transportation, agriculture, and urban development to achieve significant reductions in CO2 emissions. Some of these policies translate into efforts to change and adapt market infrastructures other policies are aimed to directly affect market exchange. As illustration, we refer to two sets of policy: Policies emanating directly from the Agreement and policy developments in Sweden. The pursuit of sustainable development challenges the way we think about the interaction between policies and markets and raises a number of new questions: What is the role of market infrastructure for sustainable development in market economies? How does policy practice and market practice interact and contribute to shape market infrastructures? What are the inter-temporal trade-offs and implications? The present paper attempts to develop the conceptual underpinning for further theoretical and empirical investigation of the role and shaping of market infrastructures for achieving sustainable development.
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Publish Year: 2018
Conference: Marseille, France (2018)