IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpot/0509005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

IE WP 23/04 Prospective Voluntary Agreements to Escape Carbon Lock-in

Author

Listed:
  • Totti Könnölä

    (Helsinki University of Technology)

  • Gregory C. Unruh

    (Instituto de Empressa Business School)

  • Javier Carrillo- Hermosilla

    (Instituto de Empresa Business School)

Abstract

The paper looks for co-evolutionary policy responses to carbon lock-in – a persistent state that creates systemic market and policy barriers to carbon low technological alternatives. We address the coordination role for authorities rather than the corrective optimisation and analyse experiences from environmental voluntary agreements and foresight activities. The paper argues that combining the virtues of these tools into a new policy tool, named Prospective Voluntary Agreement (PVA), can help facilitate an escape from carbon lock-in and provide policy resources for addressing lock-in related issues. The merit of PVA lies with the enhancement of collaborative policy culture and inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary stakeholder learning that creates commitment to desired action for escaping lock-in.

Suggested Citation

  • Totti Könnölä & Gregory C. Unruh & Javier Carrillo- Hermosilla, 2005. "IE WP 23/04 Prospective Voluntary Agreements to Escape Carbon Lock-in," Others 0509005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0509005
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/othr/papers/0509/0509005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Unruh, Gregory C., 2002. "Escaping carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 317-325, March.
    2. Paul David, 1997. "Path Dependence and the Quest for Historical Economics: One More chorus of Ballad of QWERTY," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _020, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    3. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    6. Blackman, Allen & Mazurek, Janice, 1999. "The Cost of Developing Site-Specific Environmental Regulations: Evidence from EPA's Project XL," RFF Working Paper Series dp-99-35-rev, Resources for the Future.
    7. Geoffrey Hodgson, 2002. "Visions of Mainstream Economics: A Response to Richard Nelson and Jack Vromen," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 60(1), pages 125-133.
    8. Unruh, Gregory C., 2000. "Understanding carbon lock-in," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 817-830, October.
    9. Paul A. David, 1997. "Path Dependence and the Quest for Historical Economics: One More chorus of Ballad of QWERTY," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _020, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    10. Peter Mulder & Jeroen C.J.M. Van Den Bergh, 2001. "Evolutionary Economic Theories of Sustainable Development," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 110-134.
    11. Nelson, Richard R. & Sampat, Bhaven N., 2001. "Making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 31-54, January.
    12. Richard R. Nelson, 1995. "Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 48-90, March.
    13. Carraro, Carlo & Siniscaico, Domenico, 1994. "Environmental policy reconsidered: The role of technological innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 545-554, April.
    14. René Kemp, 1997. "Environmental Policy and Technical Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1187.
    15. Cowan, Robin, 1990. "Nuclear Power Reactors: A Study in Technological Lock-in," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(3), pages 541-567, September.
    16. Metcalfe, J S, 1994. "Evolutionary Economics and Technology Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(425), pages 931-944, July.
    17. Giovanni Dosi & Christopher Freeman & Richard Nelson & Gerarld Silverberg & Luc Soete (ed.), 1988. "Technical Change and Economic Theory," LEM Book Series, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, number dosietal-1988, November.
    18. Metcalfe, J S, 1995. "Technology Systems and Technology Policy in an Evolutionary Framework," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 19(1), pages 25-46, February.
    19. Michael Keenan, 2003. "Identifying emerging generic technologies at the national level: the UK experience," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2-3), pages 129-160.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Konnola, Totti & Unruh, Gregory C. & Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier, 2006. "Prospective voluntary agreements for escaping techno-institutional lock-in," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 239-252, May.
    2. Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier, 2006. "A policy approach to the environmental impacts of technological lock-in," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 717-742, July.
    3. Timothy J. Foxon, 2014. "Technological lock-in and the role of innovation," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 20, pages 304-316, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Totti Könnölä & Gregory C. Unruh, 2007. "Really changing the course: the limitations of environmental management systems for innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(8), pages 525-537, December.
    5. Jaffe, Adam B. & Newell, Richard G. & Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Chapter 11 Technological change and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 461-516, Elsevier.
    6. Stavins, Robert & Jaffe, Adam & Newell, Richard, 2000. "Technological Change and the Environment," Working Paper Series rwp00-002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Foxon, Timothy J. & Pearson, Peter J.G. & Arapostathis, Stathis & Carlsson-Hyslop, Anna & Thornton, Judith, 2013. "Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 146-158.
    8. Leo Wangler, 2010. "Renewables and Innovation - Empirical Assessment and Theoretical Considerations," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-002, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    9. Foxon, Timothy J., 2011. "A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2258-2267.
    10. Bleda, Mercedes & del Río, Pablo, 2013. "The market failure and the systemic failure rationales in technological innovation systems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1039-1052.
    11. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    12. Goldstein, Jenny E. & Neimark, Benjamin & Garvey, Brian & Phelps, Jacob, 2023. "Unlocking “lock-in” and path dependency: A review across disciplines and socio-environmental contexts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    13. Valeria Costantini & Francesco Crespi, 2013. "Public policies for a sustainable energy sector: regulation, diversity and fostering of innovation," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 401-429, April.
    14. Francisco J. Santos-Arteaga & Debora Di Caprio & Madjid Tavana & Aidan O'Connor, 2017. "Formalising The Demand For Technological Innovations: Rational Herds, Market Frictions And Network Effects," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(02), pages 1-43, February.
    15. Jakob Edler & Jan Fagerberg, 2017. "Innovation policy: what, why, and how," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(1), pages 2-23.
    16. Roberta Patalano, 2007. "Mind-Dependence. The Past in the Grip of the Present," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 85-107, August.
    17. Bajmócy, Zoltán & Vas, Zsófia, 2012. "Az innovációs rendszerek 25 éve. Szakirodalmi áttekintés evolúciós közgazdaságtani megközelítésben [25 years of innovation systems. A literature review from the angle of evolutionary economics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1233-1256.
    18. Schmidt, Tobias S. & Battke, Benedikt & Grosspietsch, David & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2016. "Do deployment policies pick technologies by (not) picking applications?—A simulation of investment decisions in technologies with multiple applications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1965-1983.
    19. Albert Faber & Koen Frenken, 2008. "Models in evolutionary economics and environmental policy: Towards an evolutionary environmental economics," Innovation Studies Utrecht (ISU) working paper series 08-15, Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, revised Apr 2008.
    20. Kelly Levin & Benjamin Cashore & Steven Bernstein & Graeme Auld, 2012. "Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(2), pages 123-152, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    environmental voluntary agreement; foresight; increasing returns; lock-in; path-dependence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems
    • Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
    • Z - Other Special Topics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0509005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.