TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental policy performance revisited

T2 - designing effective policies for green markets

AU - Daugbjerg, Carsten

AU - Sønderskov, Kim Mannemar

N1 - First published online: 18 November 2011

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Studies of environmental policy performance tend to concentrate on the impact of particular policy institutions or of single policy instruments. However, environmental policies most often consist of a package of policy instruments. Further, these studies pay no or very little attention to policy instruments directed at the demand side of the market. Therefore this article develops a policy typology for government intervention aimed at creating green markets. The typology distinguishes between four types of policy based on the balance between the supply-side and demand-side policy instruments. On the basis of the typology, a hypothesis on their ability to expand green markets is generated and tested in a comparative analysis of the performance of organic food policies in Denmark, Sweden, the UK and the US, focusing on their impact on organic consumption. Our analysis demonstrates that cross-country variation in organic food consumption is explained by differences in the packages of policy instruments applied, controlling for numerous systemic and individual-level alternative explanations. The analysis suggests that for environmental and political reasons, governments should apply more demand-side instruments when introducing environmental policies.

AB - Studies of environmental policy performance tend to concentrate on the impact of particular policy institutions or of single policy instruments. However, environmental policies most often consist of a package of policy instruments. Further, these studies pay no or very little attention to policy instruments directed at the demand side of the market. Therefore this article develops a policy typology for government intervention aimed at creating green markets. The typology distinguishes between four types of policy based on the balance between the supply-side and demand-side policy instruments. On the basis of the typology, a hypothesis on their ability to expand green markets is generated and tested in a comparative analysis of the performance of organic food policies in Denmark, Sweden, the UK and the US, focusing on their impact on organic consumption. Our analysis demonstrates that cross-country variation in organic food consumption is explained by differences in the packages of policy instruments applied, controlling for numerous systemic and individual-level alternative explanations. The analysis suggests that for environmental and political reasons, governments should apply more demand-side instruments when introducing environmental policies.

U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00910.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00910.x

M3 - Journal article

VL - 60

SP - 399

EP - 418

JO - Political Studies

JF - Political Studies

SN - 0032-3217

IS - 2

ER -