Getting out of the car: an institutional/evolutionary approach to sustainable transport policies

Gerardo Marletto

Working Paper CRENoS from Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia

Abstract: Orthodox economics sees transport as a market which can be made more sustainable by improving its self-regulating capacity. To date this static approach has not been able to limit the growing demand for transport and its increasing environmental impact. Better results might be obtained by using evolutionary and institutional economics. Starting from these theories, a sustainable transport policy should be based on three fundamental considerations. First, transport is not a market, but a sum of systems affected by path-dependence and lock-in phenomena. Second, transport is not sustainable because it is locked in environmentally sub-optimal systems. Third, structural changes in technologies and organisations, institutions, and values are needed to establish more sustainable transport systems. We give an example of the use of an institutional/evolutionary approach to sustainable transport policies in the transition from the system of mass motorisation to the new urban mobility system.

Keywords: sustainable transportation; transport policy; environmental economics; institutional economics; evolutionary economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 Q58 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-evo, nep-geo, nep-pke and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cns:cnscwp:200814

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