How do we go blue? Sociotechnical transitions and institutional layers

Abstract

The New Institutional Economy has developed a solid basis for understanding the relationship between macro institutions and economic performance, showing how these institutions create incentives and how agents react to those incentives. The mesoinstitutional level, in turn, where the activity of translating general standards for specific contexts is located, has been less - and only recently - studied. The relationship between incentives created by institutions and the choices of agents is mediated by the micro-foundations of the decision-making process. The research proposal - in the sectors of food and urban mobility - opens in three central axes: 1) Analysis of motivations (behavioral assumptions), 2) Analysis of macro and meso levels in technological changes and 3) Analysis of the microinstitutional level (organizational strategies). What is deliberately proposed to be analyzed in three different institutional environments, Brazil, France and China. The behavioral motivations for socio-technical transitions, under the logic of micro-foundations, will be studied through an online survey (cross-country) with consumers. The analysis of the macro and meso institutional levels will be conducted through secondary documentation (rules applicable to sectors) and through interviews with key agents. For the microinstitutional analysis, a preliminary sectorial study will be carried out, from which companies will be selected that will serve as object for case studies. (AU)