TY - JOUR

T1 - Hybridity, Possibility

T2 - Degrees of Marketization in Tradeable Permit Systems

AU - Bigger, Patrick

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Environment and Planning A, 50 (3), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Environment and Planning A page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/epn on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

PY - 2018/5/1

Y1 - 2018/5/1

N2 - Tradeable permit systems for allocating rights to impact the environment have become an important part of the regulatory toolkit over the last 35 years. Informed by elegant neoclassical economic thought, these regulatory markets promise lowest-cost environmental benefit by delegating decision-making to market participants. This article examines tradeable permits systems, including cap-and-trade carbon markets, tradeable water quality permits, and individual transferable quotas for fisheries, to understand the actual outcomes of attempts to transfer environmental governance to markets. Drawing on heterodox economic thought and the neoliberal natures literature, this article examines the institutional forms tradeable permit systems engender in conjunction with a neoclassical definition of ‘market’ to provide an internal critique of environmental marketization. In general, tradeable permit systems do not facilitate highly liquid financial markets that might signal the increasing importance of regulatory markets as an accumulation strategy for capital. Instead, market-based regulation tends to behave rather differently, acting asperformance standards, quotas, or environmental taxes. The article concludes by reflecting on the political possibilities afforded by the recognition that regulatory markets, for the most part, bear little resemblance to high-flying financial markets.

AB - Tradeable permit systems for allocating rights to impact the environment have become an important part of the regulatory toolkit over the last 35 years. Informed by elegant neoclassical economic thought, these regulatory markets promise lowest-cost environmental benefit by delegating decision-making to market participants. This article examines tradeable permits systems, including cap-and-trade carbon markets, tradeable water quality permits, and individual transferable quotas for fisheries, to understand the actual outcomes of attempts to transfer environmental governance to markets. Drawing on heterodox economic thought and the neoliberal natures literature, this article examines the institutional forms tradeable permit systems engender in conjunction with a neoclassical definition of ‘market’ to provide an internal critique of environmental marketization. In general, tradeable permit systems do not facilitate highly liquid financial markets that might signal the increasing importance of regulatory markets as an accumulation strategy for capital. Instead, market-based regulation tends to behave rather differently, acting asperformance standards, quotas, or environmental taxes. The article concludes by reflecting on the political possibilities afforded by the recognition that regulatory markets, for the most part, bear little resemblance to high-flying financial markets.

KW - Markets

KW - Marketization

KW - environmental policy

KW - Tradeable permits

KW - financialization of nature

U2 - 10.1177/0308518X17737786

DO - 10.1177/0308518X17737786

M3 - Journal article

VL - 50

SP - 512

EP - 530

JO - Environment and Planning A

JF - Environment and Planning A

SN - 0308-518X

IS - 3

ER -