Beyond Efficiency – Exploring the Political and Institutional Dimensions of Market-based Instruments for Ecosystem Services

International Workshop
Protestant House of Education (Evangelische Bildungsstätte)
Isle of Schwanenwerder, Berlin, Germany

We invite abstracts for papers that discuss market-based policy instruments in environmental governance and, more specifically, in the provision of ecosystem services. Papers should pay special attention to (A) the discourse on and politics of market-based instruments (MBIs) for ecosystem services, (B) polycentric or multilevel governance contexts of MBIs, and/or (C) their performance and assessment.

The starting point for discussion is that, while MBIs feature prominently in national and international policy discourses, the debate tends to be narrowed down on their economic aspects, in particular on their cost-effectiveness or efficiency. Here, costeffectiveness usually refers to the relationship between resources expended (costs) and the accuracy and completeness with which specific goals or policy objectives are achieved, while efficiency denotes the resources expended related to the (monetary) values of policy outcomes. Our objective is to broaden the debate by specifically exploring the political and institutional dimensions linked with MBIs for ecosystem services in order to generate new insights into their design and performance within and beyond the realms of cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

http://www.ecosystemservices.de/news/cfp-mbi-beyond-efficiency