Christian Sartorius – författare

While not evident immediately, social norms and values play a crucial role in the theory of social choice. In the first half of the twentieth century, the special acknowledgement by economic theory of the autonomy of individuals and their subjective view of the world had led to the serious problem that socially acceptable decisions could not be made in the absence of unanimity. In this work, social norms and values are reintroduced to overcome this shortcoming by applying a common standard and, thus, making individual preferences comparable. In particular, it is shown, how the adoption of these standards is part of every individual's social development, how the standards themselves arose in the course of social evolution and how human beings were endowed with the necessary learning mechanism by Darwinian evolution in the first place. This impressive, unique book is well informed and clearly written. It will be of great interest to all those students, academics and researchers who are interested in evolutionary economics as well as social welfare and philosophy.

This book is the first attempt to systematically introduce the aspect of time into economic and environmental innovation policy. The authors demonstrate how 'windows of opportunity' for technological innovations emerge and also explain how they can be identified and effectively exploited. Technological innovations are widely considered as an opportunity to realise a double dividend - protect the environment and increase profits by introducing a more sustainable technology. However, intervention by the state is often needed to overcome the competitive disadvantage caused by externalities, path dependency and lock-in. The authors provide extensive evidence that this resistance to technological change is subject to substantial temporal variation. They argue that it is economically and politically sensible to identify periods of time in which resistance is weakest and to exploit these 'windows of opportunity' whenever and wherever they occur. They also highlight how time strategies for innovation policy can involve the preparation and creation of 'windows' which do not yet exist. Throughout the book, they use an array of varied and interesting case studies to confirm and illustrate their theoretical findings. These address issues such as CFC phase-out, the lean-burn engine versus the catalytic converter, ecological alternatives to chemical pesticides and the zero emission vehicle mandate in California. By exploring the relationship between time strategies and technological change, this book will undoubtedly lead to a more efficient and sustainable innovation policy. It will be required reading for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the fields of environmental innovation, sustainability, technology policy and political science.