In a small rural village in the mountains of Northeastern China, a transnational assemblage is building an internationally lauded eco-city. Examining the global dreams for a green "sustainable community" in Huangbaiyu Village opens up a window on to the science of global warming and the ecological rationality to which it gives rise. Taking the site of Huangbaiyu not as a bounded physical location, but a nodal point through which multiple logics, values, and persons converge, I ask: What type of self and society do the structures of the eco-city shape through its spaces of inhabitance and systems of survival? The construction of an eco-city is itself more than a built environment; it is a physical manifestation of a system of values and a record of power. In the name of a shared community of fate, new assemblages of authority and practices of governance are emerging. As scientific models ground political discourse, the name through which authority to act upon a population is invoked is no longer only the state, but also the planet, in which every person has a vested interest and for which every person is responsible. Under these terms, everyday practices of living become subject to judgment, transformation and discipline by persons never met in the name of protecting the planet. In China, the uncertainties of global climate change align with national anxieties over the "three rural problems": agriculture, farmers, and the countryside. In the name of sustainable development, the villagers of Huangbaiyu are again becoming the object of alien ends. This time it is market consolidation, not Communist collectivization that is re-ordering value in the countryside. In the name of protecting a "planet in peril," the villagers of Huangbaiyu would be dispossessed of their access to the natural resources of their valleys. In the name of improving their quality of life, they would be forced into either wage labor or abject poverty.What is at stake in Huangbaiyu is not only of consequence to the persons who have inhabited its spaces, but to all those who are encountering the ethical claims operationalized by ecological citizenship, or are thinking of making such claims on others. Unless attention is focused on what - and who - a new hierarchy of ecological value devalues, an ecological age may prove to be little different from the present industrial age.
Outside of China, despite rapid economic growth in many low and middle income countries, there has been little progress in meeting the MDG1 target of halving the incidence of global poverty by 2014. Part of the explanation for this weak poverty-reducing performance has been the historic trajectory of innovation. During the 20th Century, most of global innovation had its origins in the north, producing products for high income consumers, developing technologies which excluded poor producers and technologies which were energy intensive and polluting. This innovation trajectory gave rise to the not-for-profit Appropriate Technology movement after the 1970s. But many of the technologies which they it were inefficient and were scorned by both producers and consumers. However a series of disruptive factors the growth of low income consumers in the context of global economic slowdown, the development of radical technologies (such as mobile telephony and renewable power), the development of capabilities in low income economies and the emergence of new types of innovation actors have begun to transform the potential of AT to support pro-poor growth. Whilst this new vintage of ATs will be largely market-driven (since it provides the potential for profitable production), there are important dimensions in which this market-driven process can be supported by policy.
During the past decade, the use of conditional cash transfer programs to increase investment in human capital has generated considerable excitement in both research and policy forums. This article surveys the existing literature, which suggests that most conditional cash transfer programs are used for essentially one of two purposes: restoring efficiency when externalities exist or improving equity by targeting resources to poor households. The programs often meet their stated objectives, but in some instances there is tension between the efficiency and equity objectives. The overall impact of a program depends on the gains and losses associated with each objective.
1. Contextual outline of the PhD Research Climate change is today often seen as one of the most challenging issue that our civilisation will have to face during the 21st century. This is especially so now that the most recent scientific data have led to the conclusion that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming (IPCC 2007, p. 5) and that continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming (IPCC, 2007 p. 13). This unequivocal link between climate change and anthropogenic activities requires an urgent, world-wide shift towards a low carbon economy (STERN 2006 p. iv) and coordinated policies and measures to manage this transition. The climate issue is undoubtedly a typical policy question and as such, is considered amenable to economic scrutiny. Indeed, in today's world economics is inevitable when it comes to arbitrages in the field of policy making. From the very beginning of international talks on climate change, up until the most recent discussions on a post-Kyoto international framework, economic arguments have turned out to be crucial elements of the analysis that shapes policy responses to the climate threat. This can be illustrated by the prominent role that economics has played in the different analyses produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the impact of climate change on society. The starting point and the core idea of this PhD research is the long-held observation that the threat of climate change calls for a change of climate in economics. Borrowing from the jargon used in climate policy, adaptation measures could also usefully target the academic discipline of economics. Given that inherent characteristics of the climate problem (e.g. complexity, irreversibility, deep uncertainty, etc.) challenge core economic assumptions, mainstream economic theory does not appear as appropriately equipped to deal with this crucial issue. This makes that new assumptions and analyses are needed in economics in order to comprehend and respond to the problem of climate change. In parallel (and without environmental considerations being specifically the driving force to it), the mainstream model in economics has also long been (and still is) strongly criticised and disputed by numerous scholars - both from within and outside the field of economics. For the sake of functionality, these criticisms - whether they relate to theoretical inconsistencies or are empirically-based - can be subsumed as all challenging part of the Cartesian/Newtonian legacy of economics. This legacy can be shown to have led to a model imprinted with what could be called "mechanistic reductionism". The mechanistic side refers to the Homo oeconomicus construct while reductionism refers to the quest for micro-foundations materialised with the representative agent hypothesis. These two hypotheses constitute, together with the conjecture of perfect markets, the building blocks of the framework of general equilibrium economics. Even though it is functional for the purpose of this work to present them separately, the flaws of economics in dealing with the specificities of the climate issue are not considered independent from the fundamental objections made to the theoretical framework of mainstream economics. The former only make the latter seem more pregnant while the current failure of traditional climate policies informed by mainstream economics render the need for complementary approaches more urgent. 2. Overview of the approach and its main insights for climate policy Starting from this observation, the main objective of this PhD is thus to assess the implications for climate policy that arise from adopting an alternative analytical economic framework. The stance is that the coupling of insights from the framework of evolutionary economics with the perspective of ecological economics provides a promising way forward both theoretically as well as on a more applied basis with respect to a better comprehension of the socioeconomic aspects related to the climate problem. As claimed in van den Bergh (2007, p. 521), ecological economics and evolutionary economics "share many characteristics and can be combined in a fruitful way" - which renders the coupling approach both legitimate and promising. The choice of an evolutionary line of thought initially stems from its core characteristic: given its focus on innovation and system change it provides a useful approach to start with for assessing and managing the needed transition towards a low carbon economy. Besides, its shift of focus towards a better understanding of economic dynamics together with its departure from the perfect rationality hypothesis renders evolutionary economics a suitable theoretical complement for designing environmental policies. The notions of path-dependence and lock-in can be seen as the core elements from this PhD research. They arise from adopting a framework which is founded on a different view of individual rationality and that allows for richer and more complex causalities to be accounted for. In a quest for surmounting the above-mentioned problem of reductionism, our framework builds on the idea of 'multi-level selection'. This means that our analytical framework should be able to accommodate not only for upward but also for downward causation, without giving analytical priority to any level over the other. One crucial implication of such a framework is that the notion of circularity becomes the core dynamic, highlighting the importance of historicity, feedbacks and emergent properties. More precisely, the added value of the perspective adopted in this PhD research is that it highlights the role played by inertia and path-dependence. Obviously, it is essential to have a good understanding of the underlying causes of that inertia prior to devising on how to enforce a change. Providing a clear picture of the socio-economic processes at play in shaping socio-technical systems is thus a necessary first step in order to usefully complement policy-making in the field of energy and climate change. In providing an analytical basis for this important diagnosis to be performed, the use of the evolutionary framework sheds a new light on the transition towards low-carbon socio-technical systems. The objective is to suggest strategies that could prove efficient in triggering the needed transition such as it has been the case in past "lock-in" stories. Most notably, the evolutionary framework allows us to depict the presence of two sources of inertia (i.e at the levels of individuals through "habits" and at the level of socio-technical systems) that mutually reinforce each other in a path-dependent manner. Within the broad perspective on path dependence and lock-in, this PhD research has first sketched the implications for climate policy of applying the concept of 'technological lock-in' in a systemic perspective. We then investigated in more details the notion of habits. This is important as the 'behavioural' part of the lock-in process, although explicitly acknowledged in the pioneer work of Paul David (David, 1985, p. 336), has been neglected in most of subsequent analyses. Throughout this study, the notion of habits has been studied at both the theoretical and applied level of analysis as well as from an empirical perspective. As shown in the first chapters of the PhD, the advantage of our approach is that it can incorporate theories that so far have been presented opposite, partial and incomplete perspectives. For instance, it is shown that our evolutionary approach not only is able to provide explanation to some of the puzzling questions in economics (e.g. the problem of strong reciprocity displayed by individual in anonymous one-shot situations) but also is very helpful in bringing a complementary explanation with respect to the famous debate on the 'no-regret' emission reduction potential which agitates the experts of climate policy. An emission reduction potential is said to be "no regret" when the costs of implementing a measure are more than offset by the benefits it generates such as, for instance, reduced energy bills. In explaining why individuals do not spontaneously implement those highly profitable energy-efficient investments , it appears that most prior analyses have neglected the importance of non-economic obstacle. They are often referred to as "barriers" and partly relate to the 'bounded rationality' of economic agent. As developed in the different chapters of this PhD research, the framework of evolutionary economics is very useful in that it is able to provide a two-fold account (i.e. relying on both individual and socio-technical sources of inertia) of this limited rationality that prevent individuals to act as purely optimising agents. Bearing this context in mind, the concept of habits, as defined and developed in this study, is essential in analysing the determinants of energy consumption. Indeed, this concept sheds an insightful light on the puzzling question of why energy consumption keeps rising even though there is an evident increase of awareness and concern about energy-related environmental issues such as climate change. Indeed, if we subscribe to the idea that energy-consuming behaviours are often guided by habits and that deeply ingrained habits can become "counter-intentional", it then follows that people may often display "locked-in" practices in their daily energy consumption behaviour. This hypothesis has been assessed in our empirical analysis whose results show how the presence of strong energy-consuming habitual practices can reduce the effectiveness of economic incentives such as energy subsidies. One additional delicate factor that appears crucial for our purpose is that habits are not fully conscious forms of behaviours. This makes that individuals do not really see habits as a problem given that it is viewed as easily changed. In sum, based on our evolutionary account of the situation, it follows that, to be more efficient, climate policies would have to both shift the incumbent carbon-based socio-technical systems (for it to shape decisions towards a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions) and also deconstruct habits that this same socio-technical has forged with time (as increased environmental awareness and intentions formulated accordingly are not sufficient in the presence of strong habits). Accordingly, decision-makers should design measures (e.g. commitment strategies, niche management, etc.) that, as explained in this research, specifically target those change-resisting factors and their key features. This is essential as these factors tend to reduce the efficiency of traditional instruments. Micro-level interventions are thus needed as much as macro-level ones. For instance, it is often the case that external improvements of energy efficiency do not lead to lower energy consumption due to the rebound effect arising from unchanged energy-consuming habits. Bearing this in mind and building on the insights from the evolutionary approach, policy-makers should go beyond the mere subsidisation of technologies. They should instead create conditions enabling the use of the multi-layered, cumulative and self-reinforcing character of economic change highlighted by evolutionary analyses. This means supporting both social and physical technologies with the aim of influencing the selection environment so that only the low-carbon technologies and practices will survive. ; De nos jours, la science économique est devenue une discipline incontournable dans le domaine de l'analyse politique. Les politiques environnementales, et notamment la politique de lutte contre le réchauffement climatique, n'échappent pas à la règle. Or, la théorie économique traditionnelle repose sur des postulats fortement contestés par de nombreux auteurs, tant du point de vue théorique que du point de vue empirique. Dans ce contexte, l'idée de la thèse est de voir quelles seraient les implications de l'adoption d'une grille de lecture économique alternative sur le processus de décision dans le domaine de la politique climatique. Le choix d'un autre modèle s'est porté logiquement sur l'économie évolutionniste dans la mesure où, d'une part, ce courant s'est construit sur l'idée qu'il fallait réconcilier la caractérisation de l'agent économique avec l'abondante littérature empirique et, d'autre part, il a opté pour la logique biologique, plus en phase les rythmes écologiques, comme métaphore inspiratrice. De par la nature même de la réflexion sous-tendant ses fondements théoriques, l'économie évolutionniste s'intéresse aux dynamiques économiques résultant des processus d'innovation, sélection et accumulation. En fait, ce qui est considéré comme exogène dans le modèle traditionnel, constitue le « cœur conceptuel » du modèle évolutionniste. Le choix de cette nouvelle grille de lecture a inévitablement comme conséquence d'envisager d'une autre manière l'économie politique portant sur les questions environnementales. La première partie de la recherche est consacrée à une analyse approfondie des critiques formulées à l'encontre du modèle économique traditionnel. Cette analyse, dont l'objectif est de contribuer à l'élaboration du cadre conceptuel de la thèse, consiste en l'exploration parallèle du champ de recherche concernant le fonctionnement des agents économiques et de la philosophie évolutionniste en général. Cette investigation conjointe, doublée d'un cadrage portant sur l'histoire et l'évolution de la science économique, permet d'aborder de front les deux faiblesses principales du modèle traditionnel, à savoir l'irréalisme empirique du paradigme de l'Homo Oeconomicus et le problème de la simple agrégation sous la forme de l'agent représentatif. Cette phase aboutit à la formulation d'un schéma analytique alternatif fondé sur le concept de « rationalité limitée » articulé dans un cadre reposant sur la notion d'évolution, définie comme un processus à causalité cumulative, double (ascendante et descendante) et interactive illustrant l'importance jouée par le niveau de groupe pour expliquer le fonctionnement des individus. Ce cadre et les préceptes qui en découlent seront utilisés d'une part, pour tenter d'apporter un éclairage différent sur la question du « paradoxe énergétique » et, d'autre part, pour analyser l'évolution technologique, élément central de la problématique du climat. Par exemple, la notion de causalité cumulative et interactive appliquée à la question de l'évolution technologique met lumière celle de « dépendance du sentier » qui exprime l'idée selon laquelle des évènements aléatoires insignifiants influencent fortement la direction et l'orientation d'une trajectoire technologique. De même, l'importance de la contingence historique et des interdépendances systémiques, qui découlent de notre choix d'adopter une approche évolutionniste, servent à expliquer le processus via lequel on a abouti à ce que l'on peut appeler le « carbon lock-in », selon lequel notre économie serait enfermée dans un régime sociotechnique « carbone » tant nos habitudes, nos institutions et nos réseaux technologiques sont adaptés à l'utilisation de combustibles fossiles (principale cause du problème de l'effet de serre). Cette notion d'enfermement technologique à laquelle notre analyse a mené est importante dans le sens où elle requiert des décideurs politiques de mettre en œuvre des mesures propres à déverrouiller nos trajectoires technologiques, si on veut respecter les engagements pris dans le cadre du Protocole de Kyoto. En conclusion, l'adoption d'une approche évolutionniste est susceptible de faire évoluer sensiblement le type de politiques et instrument utilisés pour lutter contre le problème du réchauffement. Notamment, elle questionne la pertinence des instruments économiques actuels, comme l'échange de quotas d'émissions, qui proviennent du modèle traditionnel (mettant l'accent sur l'efficience et reposant sur la parfaite rationalité des acteurs), dans la mesure où ils ne traitent pas des barrières structurelles responsables de l'enfermement technologique dans la filière fossile. Comme le souligne notre recherche, les politiques climatiques devraient plutôt créer un environnement permettant d'utiliser la nature cumulative et auto-renforçante de l'évolution des technologies.
Can cash transfers promote employment and reduce poverty in rural Africa? Will lower youth unemployment and poverty reduce the risk of social instability? The authors experimentally evaluate one of Uganda's largest development programs, which provided thousands of young people nearly unconditional, unsupervised cash transfers to pay for vocational training, tools, and business start-up costs. Mid-term results after two years suggest four main findings. First, despite a lack of central monitoring and accountability, most youth invest the transfer in vocational skills and tools. Second, the economic impacts of the transfer are large: hours of non-household employment double and cash earnings increase by nearly 50 percent relative to the control group. The authors estimate the transfer yields a real annual return on capital of 35 percent on average. Third, the evidence suggests that poor access to credit is a major reason youth cannot start these vocations in the absence of aid. Much of the heterogeneity in impacts is unexplained, however, and is unrelated to conventional economic measures of ability, suggesting we have much to learn about the determinants of entrepreneurship. Finally, these economic gains result in modest improvements in social stability. Measures of social cohesion and community support improve mildly, by roughly 5 to 10 percent, especially among males, most likely because the youth becomes a net giver rather than a net taker in his kin and community network. Most strikingly, we see a 50 percent fall in interpersonal aggression and disputes among males, but a 50 percent increase among females. Neither change seems related to economic performance nor does social cohesion a puzzle to be explored in the next phase of the study. These results suggest that increasing access to credit and capital could stimulate employment growth in rural Africa. In particular, unconditional and unsupervised cash transfers may be a more effective and cost-efficient forming of large-scale aid than commonly believed. A second stage of data collection in 2012 will collect longitudinal economic impacts, additional data on political violence and behavior, and explore alternative theoretical mechanisms.
The literature on the economics of happiness in developed economies finds discrepancies between reported measures of well-being and income measures. One is the so-called Easterlin paradox: that average happiness levels do not increase as countries grow wealthier. This article explores how that paradox and survey research on reported wellbeing in general can provide insights into the gaps between standard measures of economic development and individual assessments of welfare. Analysis of research on reported wellbeing in Latin America and Russia finds notable discrepancies between respondent assessments of their own wellbeing and income or expenditure based measures. Accepting a wide margin for error in both types of measures, the article posits that taking such discrepancies into account may improve the understanding of development outcomes by providing a broader view on wellbeing than do income or expenditure based measures alone. It suggests particular areas where research on reported well-being has the most potential to contribute. Yet the article also notes that some interpretations of happiness research psychologist set point theory, in particular may be quite limited in their application to development questions and cautions against the direct translation of results of happiness surveys into policy recommendations.
