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We examine the price ambivalence of low quality waste paper (grades 1.02 and 1.04) on the German market. Since 1990 the price of these grades is at times positive and at times negative. The underlying reason is the combination of three institutional and technical characteristics of the market: (i) As a result of waste management legislation the supply of waste paper is mostly independent of its price and its demand. Supply is bounded from below by collection and utilization quotas fixed by the Regulation on Packaging Waste enacted in 1991. (ii) The only alternative to costly disposal of waste paper by dumping or incineration is its use as a secondary resource in the production of new paper, as only the paper industry is capable of using waste paper in a productive manner in significant amount. (iii) Yet, its use as a substitute for primary inputs is technically limited. In this article, we describe the technical and institutional conditions leading to price ambivalence and discuss the consequences for supply, demand and trade of waste paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

How land markets should be regulated is a fraught political question. This paper argues that the heterodox political economy of Karl Polanyi – underutilised in urban studies and planning scholarship – provides a useful language to analyse the role of urban planning in development land markets. We ground our analysis in the concept of embeddedness, building on Polanyi's core contention that economic behaviour is not, and cannot be, distinct from social, political and cultural relations. We juxtapose an account of the institutionalisation of urban planning in England during the mid-20th century with contemporary neoliberal reforms, analysing the dynamic reconfigurations in how development land markets have been differently embedded via the planning system in relation to a shifting political, ideological and economic environment. The paper foregrounds the co-constitutive nature of state regulation and markets, moving past the simplistic regulation-deregulation dichotomy frequently adopted to frame government intervention via the planning system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores Michael Novak's understanding of the human person and his normative case for the market economy, specifically its points of agreement and tension with natural rights libertarianism. For Michael Novak, the imago dei provides the strongest account for the relationship between the market economy, human dignity, and natural rights. Rationalistic attempts, such as those within libertarianism, cannot adequately ground human dignity or sustain free institutions capable of serving the common good, the market economy, and political liberty. However, Novak's affinity to his libertarian interlocutors presents an opportunity for dialogue on the necessity of economic freedom and related theological influences on natural rights theory for securing human flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this theme issue discusses a series of papers examining the increasing marketisation of social reproduction and its effects on systems that sustain human and social life. This is done by examining the frontiers, framings, and frictions that arise when market systems are constructed to enable capital accumulation in the realm of social reproduction. Frontiers identify the expansion of market logic into new areas, framings explore how financial actors attempt to bring the logic of social reproduction within the purview of market competition, and frictions highlight the various tensions that generate resistance to the roll out of market logics. Through establishing these three areas, we argue that both market structures and systems of social reproduction should be understood as geographically variegated and, at times, uncertain. This variegation necessitates an understanding of marketised social reproduction as forged through complex articulations of market and non-market logics. Using cases from surrogacy to smart electricity meters, the papers in this theme issue illustrate that while these articulations may generate benefits for some individuals, households and communities, such processes of marketisation can introduce new layers of inequity and undermine the ethical relations and social commitments that sustain life—in the service of enabling accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campaigns for personal health expenses make up the largest and fastest-growing segment of donation-based crowdfunding. Set against the backdrop of retrenchment and disinvestment in public healthcare systems across the global North, health-related crowdfunding is a way to navigate increasingly marketised systems of social reproduction. Despite high profile success stories, campaigns vary significantly in their ability to capture the hearts, and ultimately wallets, of donors. While existing analyses of online campaign pages offer some insight into the marketing of healthcare needs, far less is known about practices and experiences of crowdfunding platform users, including campaigners. Bringing literature on crowdfunding together with accounts of the marketisation of care, our paper asks: how do campaigners work to secure crowdfunded healthcare? Through the accounts of 15 people campaigning on behalf of family or friends in Aotearoa New Zealand, we show how attempts to appeal to donors depend on campaigners' abilities to 'market' illness and need in ways that resonate with the crowd. We have two main foci. First, we examine the responsibility and responsibilisation of campaigners to engage and perform accountability to crowdfunders. Second, we show how campaigners mobilise recipients' traits of deservingness and other culturally favoured personal qualities to appeal to the crowd's perceived predilections. In sum, the paper demonstrates how the use of crowdfunding is both necessitated by the marketisation of healthcare while simultaneously exerting its own form of market discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Previous studies by the authors have shown that energy savings in pulp and paper mills offer opportunities for increased electricity production on-site or wood fuel export. The energy export implies reductions in CO2 emissions off-site, where fossil fuel or fossil-fuel-based electricity is replaced. To assess this potential and the related profitability for a future situation, four energy market scenarios were used. For a typical Scandinavian mill, the potential for CO2-emission reductions was 15-140 kton year−1 depending on the scenario and the form of energy export. Extrapolated to all relevant mills in Sweden, the potential was 0.4-3.1 Mton year−1, which is in the order of percent of the Swedish CO2 emissions. Wood fuel export implies larger reduction in CO2 emissions in most scenarios. In contrast, electricity export showed better economy in most of the cases studied; with annual earnings of 5-6 M€, this is an economically robust option. In the market pulp mill investigated, the wood fuel export was in the form of lignin. Lignin could possibly be valued as oil, regarding both price and potential for CO2-emission reduction, making lignin separation an option with good profitability and large reductions of CO2 emissions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that if a set of plausible conditions obtain, then driving a standard vehicle rather than riding in an autonomous vehicle (AV) will become analogous to driving drunk rather than driving sober, and therefore impermissible. In addition, we argue that a ban on the production, sale, and purchase of new standard vehicles would also become justified. We make this case in part by highlighting that the central reasons typically offered in support of state-mandated vaccination will also support mandating AV use. Finally, we discuss some of the implications of our argument for the obligations of vehicle-producing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across Northern Thailand, het thop mushrooms (Astraeus) are foraged and sold into an increasingly commodified marketplace. A species of wild fungi that only appears for a short time each year, it is widely enjoyed across the diverse range of communities living in the region and increasingly positioned as part of the Lanna food and cultural aesthetic. Through a rapid rise in price over recent decades and the subsequent forging of supply chains linking rural communities to urban and online markets, foraging practices now provide significant seasonal incomes and form an essential part of annual livelihoods. However, as this paper contends – working closely with the analytical framing of "precarity" put forth by Tsing (2015) in a similar fungal context – there are forms of precariousness and uncertainty that are inherent in wild products, from the indeterminant ecologies from which it emerges, to the unreliable livelihoods that arise from it, and the fickle market for such products. The purpose is not to dismiss this market as frivolous or problematic, but rather to suggest that in a disturbed and distorted environmental and economic context such as Northern Thailand, this is indicative of a wider shift toward a "salvage economy." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support increasing renewable capacity for a net-zero future, energy storage will play a key role in maintaining grid stability. In this paper, all current and near-future energy storage technologies are compared for three different scenarios: (1) fixed electricity buy-in price, (2) market-based electricity buy-in price, and (3) energy storage integrated into a fully renewable electricity system. In the first part of this study, an algorithm is devised to simulate strategic buy-in of electricity for energy storage. This analysis yields a qualitative decision-making tool for a given energy storage duration and size. Building upon the first part's findings, an integration study gives insight into expected power prices and expected storage size in a typical northwestern European fully renewable energy system. The integration study shows significant need for electricity storage with durations spanning from one to several days, typically around 40 h. Pumped Hydro Storage and Pumped Thermal storage surface as the best options. The overall levelized costs of storage are expected to be in the USD 200–500/MWh range. Integration of storage with renewables can yield a system-levelized cost of electricity of about USD 150/MWh. Allowing flexibility in demand may lower the overall system-levelized cost of electricity to USD 100/MWh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of commercial‐assisted suicide lives a marginal existence in the bioethical literature, despite its significant presence in popular culture. The practice of commercial‐assisted suicide (CAS) is defined as suicide assistance performed for a financial reward through a contractual agreement between a customer and a service‐provider, who does not necessarily need to be a medical professional. While CAS does indeed offer some potential solutions regarding the moral controversies surrounding physician‐assisted suicide (PAS), I defend the idea that adopting it as policy ultimately proves morally indefensible and practically inefficient. This is due to the fact that the commodification of a given good necessarily implies the creation of a market of said good; as such, what I propose in this paper is a moral and practical evaluation of a market of CAS. In order to do so, I first examine the arguments in favor of CAS as put forward by Roland Kipke, who argues that any liberal defense of PAS necessarily implies a defense of CAS. In the first section, I argue against this idea using the liberal values of autonomy and equality of opportunity. In the second section of the paper, I argue that a market of CAS would be gravely dysfunctional due to one particular characteristic of death, namely, that is not compensable ex post. I conclude by arguing that while the practice of CAS may not prove morally problematic, the inevitable market that it will create should it be legalized most certainly will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Turkish electricity market law (EML) came into force in 2001 aiming at establishing a financially strong, stable, transparent and competitive electricity market based on bilateral contracts. Also, a balancing and settlement system (BSS) was put into practice in November 2004 to create a market where uncontracted generation can be traded, and actual implementation of the BSS started on August, 1st 2006 following a 21-month virtual implementation period. However, BSS has always been criticized from its beginning as transferring excessive profits to private generation companies. The present paper analyzes the implementation of BSS and argues that current BSS not only undermines the healthy development of the electricity market in Turkey but also prevents power investments due to uncertainties it created. It concludes that since the inconsistency between the objectives of EML and results of BSS in practice is obvious, Turkish policy makers need to modify current electricity market policy in line with suggestions presented in the paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the dynamics of neoliberal agrarian restructuring within the Turkish sugar industry, focusing on the 2018 privatization of the Alpullu Sugar Factory. The analysis examines the transformative impact of market dependence and land commodification on relationship of farmers with the agricultural sector. Specifically, it focuses on two significant neoliberal shifts that have altered the dynamics of farming. First, the withdrawal of state support in agricultural markets prompted farmers to diversify their income streams, leading to a transition from sugar beet cultivation to alternative crops and contemplation of urban migration. Second, in the 2000s, farmers, grappling with declining agricultural revenues, increasingly relied on private bank credits as a means of financial security. This shift was propelled by changes in agricultural policy regulations and the dissolution of state‐sponsored credit systems. Employing a blend of qualitative and quantitative research methods, this study elucidated these complex transformations and their profound impact on agrarian livelihoods, land ownership shifts, production strategies and market relationships. The research revealed the complex interplay of social, economic and historical dynamics steering the trajectory of the Turkish sugar industry, providing valuable insights into neoliberal restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the importance of trust, in the context of economic institutions, and specifically with respect to questions about market mechanisms and the role of social interactions. We review recent advances in institutional economics closely tied to developments in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, involving extended and enactive cognition. We argue that the analysis of different conceptions of institutional mind extension, in Denzau and North's shared mental models, Clark's extended mind, and a more enactive approach that emphasizes the importance of social interaction and personal relationships, can benefit from Kathrine Hawley's distinction between reliability and trust. Institutional arrangements based solely on the reliability of impersonal mechanisms can lead to a variety of social pathologies and, at the extreme, a form of cognitive atrophy, all of which can undermine the sustainability of institutions. Even if trust comes with risks and some degree of unpredictability, it turns out to be a necessary glue-like ingredient in the constitution of social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human milk (HM) is a highly evolutionary selected, complex biofluid, which provides tailored nutrition, immune system support and developmental cues that are unique to each maternal–infant dyad. In the absence of maternal milk, the World Health Organisation recommends vulnerable infants should be fed with screened donor HM (DHM) from a HM bank (HMB) ideally embedded in local or regional lactation support services. However, demand for HM products has arisen from an increasing awareness of the developmental and health impacts of the early introduction of formula and a lack of prioritisation into government‐funded and nonprofit milk banking and innovation. This survey of global nonprofit milk bank leaders aimed to outline the trends, commonalities and differences between nonprofit and for‐profit HM banking, examine strategies regarding the marketing and placement of products to hospital and public customers and outline the key social, ethical and human rights concerns. The survey captured information from 59 milk bank leaders in 30 countries from every populated continent. In total, five companies are currently trading HM products with several early‐stage private milk companies (PMCs). Products tended to be more expensive from PMC than HMB, milk providers were financially remunerated and lactation support for milk providers and recipients was not a core function of PMCs. Current regulatory frameworks for HM vary widely, with the majority of countries lacking any framework, and most others placing HM within food legislation, which does not include the support and care of milk donors and recipient prioritisation. Regulation as a Medical Product of Human Origin was only in place to prevent the sale of HM in four countries; export and import of HM was banned in two countries. This paper discusses the safety and ethical concerns raised by the commodification of HM and the opportunities policymakers have globally and country‐level to limit the potential for exploitation and the undermining of breastfeeding. Key messages: The number and scope of human milk (HM) profit‐making companies is increasing globallyCurrent regulatory frameworks for HM vary widelyProducts offered by private milk companies (PMCs) are generally more expensive than from HM banksSome PMCs are adopting marketing practices traditionally associated with breast milk substitute companies.The health benefits of HM‐based fortifiers compared to bovine milk‐based fortifiers are unclear and may be marginal [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boosted by a huge potential market and government funding, China is fast developing compound manufacturing, especially for LED lighting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper uncovers a hitherto unnoticed pattern of communal segregation among establishments located in some of Delhi's most important bazars. It demonstrates that this pattern, emerging between 1913 and 1932, was driven by structural features of the ways in which Delhi's trade and retail interacted with communal violence in the 1920s. Those features include the dislocating effects of communal violence on bazars. More strident political activity by merchants, however, was important fuel to this fire. Merchants did not, also, restrict themselves to repeating communal tropes developed elsewhere. Their self-organisation gave shape to a conception of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim' trades. Rather than see a communal 'pre-Partition' in the 1930s, this evidence suggests that communal segregation was already well on the rise in the 1920s. Business as usual, then, was a source of deepening communal antagonisms rather than, as is sometimes assumed, a source of everyday bonhomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where economists previously viewed the market as arising from a ‘spontaneous order’, antithetical to design, they now design markets to achieve specific purposes. This paper reconstructs how this change in what markets are and can do came about and considers some consequences. Two decisive developments in economic theory are identified: first, Hurwicz’s view of institutions as mechanisms, which should be designed to align incentives with social goals; and second, the notion of marketplaces – consisting of infrastructure and algorithms – which should be designed to exhibit stable properties. These developments have empowered economists to create marketplaces for specific purposes, by designing appropriate algorithms. I argue that this power to create marketplaces requires a shift in ethical reasoning, from whether markets should reach into certain spheres of life, to how market algorithms should be designed. I exemplify this shift, focusing on bias, and arguing that transparency should become a goal of market design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Markets are sites of collaboration as well as contestation between their various actors, including firms and consumers. In this respect, a narrative that consumers are more empowered than ever has been in vogue. Drawing from Kafka's literature and philosophy and the paradigm of critical marketing, this paper argues for a broadened perspective. Using a selective and exploratory-review approach, six dimensions of the state of today's consumer emerge. These are subsequently assessed and developed as manifestations challenging the empowerment thesis. The depiction of intense subjugation in Kafka's fiction and the lack of agency his characters portray furnish narrative frames to view the paradoxical state of contemporary consumption. Specifically, consumer choice and sovereignty, service failures and recoveries, privacy concerns, the capitalist nexus, transformation in service provisioning modes, and frontline employees' lowered stakes comprise six analytical frames of consumers' lives that depict their paradoxical simultaneity of empowerment and entrapment. The work contributes to critical marketing theory in particular and critical philosophy in general. Specifically, the proposed framework of consumption challenges depicted herein can serve as a mid-range theoretical taxonomy. The exemplar states highlighted reveal managerial and policy challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts the official, largely silent, role of the World Bank as an agent of global markets with its professed role as agent of the poor. The failure to make explicit its role as global market advocate creates a policy environment that can be destructive of both global markets and the long-term survival of the world’s poor. The article examines the World Bank’s Education Sector Strategy in this light. The article begins by outlining the institutional, policy and education frameworks that emerge from the conflicts of the World Bank’s dual role in markets and poverty. It then shows that the implementation and outcome analyses in The Strategy grow out of these frameworks and are, therefore, limited in scope and effectiveness. An approach that explicitly acknowledges the market roles of the World Bank would have led to a more effective policy document. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we perform a text analysis of Adam Smith's two books, the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, to better characterize their highly disputed differences in terms of moral cognition. In particular, given that Smith's ideas are still very cited and influential in the current scholarly debate on moral cognition, we are interested in understanding whether a text analysis would unveil a semantic structure that is in line with a dual process theory interpretation or, alternatively, with a neuro-emergent cognition one. We find that, despite that the intellectual koine in which Smith's thought was originally embedded would be more in line with a dual process theory approach, the analysis reveals a better consonance with the neuro-emergent cognition approach. This opens new and interesting perspectives in future research on the moral cognition of market interactions in a Smithian tradition of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explicates and critiques an understanding of markets that is dominant in much contemporary political theory. Drawing on the insights of new materialist economic sociology, it argues that the divide between "the political" and "the market" that grounds many recent analyses cannot ultimately be sustained. Conceptualizing markets not as abstract, impersonal mechanisms but as polyvalent assemblages, the paper develops a view of markets as material devices subject to a wide variety of political inflections and deployments. This understanding is then used to clarify some of the disputes between market-friendly neo-republican theorists and their critics. The article argues that markets are best conceptualized as political institutions (rather than as alternatives to politics). It commends an approach to political theorizing that moves beyond "pro-" and "antimarket" positions, focusing instead on the material details of market configurations and their consequences for agency and social power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the contributions to the review symposium on How China Escaped Shock Therapy. I discuss the strategy of economic system reform that started from the non-essential parts of the industrial system in order to eventually transform the commanding heights; the spatial dimension of reform in relation to "dual circulation" and the coastal development strategy; the nature and meaning of Chinese gradualism; and China's price stabilization strategies of the 1980s in relation to later inflationary challenges. Finally, I reflect on the symposium as a dialogue between economic geography and a history of ideas in action that I pursued in my book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 we published a paper on organ transplants that used data from 1990–2005. We proposed a radical solution of paying individuals to donate kidneys, and claimed that this would clean out the waiting list for kidney transplants in a short period of time. In this paper, we revisit the topic, and examine 14 years of additional data to see if anything fundamental has changed. We show that the main altruistic based policies implemented, such as kidney exchanges or opt out systems for organ procurement, have been unable to solve the problem of shortages. Our analysis suggests that, because of the reaction of direct living donors to increases in other sources of donations, the supply curve of kidney transplants is highly inelastic to altruistic policies. In contrast, a market in organs would eliminate organ shortages and thereby eliminate thousands of needless deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an archaeological method for the detection of market exchange using pottery as an archaeologically well-visible representative of former everyday items. The assemblage from the 9th-century Moravian centre at Staré Město near Uherské Hradiště was evaluated by archaeometric methods (XRF, petrography, XRD) and resulted in the detection of a complex exchange network connecting the centre with multiple parts of its hinterland. Results thus support the previously defined hypothesis about integration of the centre into a regional market system, and helps to refine the knowledge about the degree of commercialization of the period’s regional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite theoretical developments in conceptualising alterity, what counts as 'alternative' in unconventional systems of food provision remains contested. This paper argues that the literature has reached an impasse. I argue that overly 'alternative' readings conceptualise Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as a more embedded form of economic exchange, while neoliberal readings represent them as a case of marketisation. This paper systematically reviews AFNs literature and contends that a deeper engagement with Polanyian geographies enables a more nuanced approach to evaluating alternatives and their socio-political significance. Analytically and normatively, 'alternatives' need not be radically 'other', nor seen as having been co-opted by the neoliberal order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses autonomy as a set of practices that result in the production and reproduction of resources that allow for self‐organization. We define autonomy as a social construct that refers to the self‐organizing capacity of people, communities, and movements. Such capacity assumes both resources and agency. In that vein, our conceptualisation implies that autonomy is a relational concept: It can only emerge when and where struggles that aim at going beyond dependency (i.e., nonautonomy) concretely exist. Autonomy is three‐pronged, involving a set of goal‐oriented activities, a distantiation from capital, and the agency of social actors. Intertwined with these levels are peasant movements that have the capacity to develop and implement a political agenda that is not overshadowed and/or dictated by external influences. The paper illustrates this intertwining with the case of the Circuito (O Circuito), a Brazilian peasant movement that has constructed and operates an extended farmers' market and which simultaneously transforms farming practices. The Circuit is the outcome of collective action and shows the potential of multilevel performance of several actors engaged in concerted actions. In the conclusion, we suggest that the Circuit represents autonomy based on commonly pooled resources as well representing a countermovement to the destructive dynamics of food empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the short history of Google's AI-driven data collation and marketing technology, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which was designed to replace third-party cookies, the technology at the heart of "surveillance capitalism." Using publicly available data such as patents, investor calls, public filings, github accounts, and presentations, this paper explores FLoCs and its immediate replacements, The Topics API and FLEDGE, and contests claims that Google's new marketing technologies are both 'privacy-centric' and as effective as surveillance-driven targeted advertising. The paper argues that Google's parent company, Alphabet is starting on a path away from being an advertising and information company to being an "AI-first" company, and sees FLoC as one (mis)step on this path. The paper shows how an combination of interacting factors – corporate ideology, market forces, regulatory responses, and internal cultural conflict – are driving this transformation, but concludes that surveillance will continue to be at the heart of any AI-first economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are we witnessing the return of virtual worlds such as Deuxième Monde (1997) or Second Life (2003), boosted and enhanced by technologies? Or is it the coming of the next generation of the Internet (Web 3.0)? Or is it just a marketing repackaging of virtual reality markets that up to now did not deliver as expected? This paper attempts to provide answers to these questions. It introduces the notion of the metaverse, looks at its definition(s), and describes its key elements, thereby outlining the metaverse ecosystem. The article also attempts to draw lessons from the pioneering experiences of former virtual worlds, and thus examines some case studies from the video game industry. In conclusion, we investigate the metaverse's potential constraints (energy/environment, cost of hardware and bandwidth, lack of business models, regulation) and opportunities, and reveal the challenges ahead for its widespread adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an Exchange section dedicated to the question of the new state capitalism. It is suggested that the new state capitalism, both as an ascendant concept and as marker of socioinstitutional facts on the ground, signals a significant geohistorical moment, perhaps not a new "era" as such, but a notable inflection point. This warrants critical attention, even if first-generation treatments of the phenomenon itself may have been somewhat wanting. Contributions follow from Ilias Alami, Jennifer Bair, Isabella Weber, Marion Werner, and Heather Whiteside, each of whom provide a critical take on (debates around) the new state capitalism from their own theoretical perspective and vantage point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claims about 'the commodification of everything' are a staple of 21st century left (and some liberal) analysis and critique. These claims, however, are asserted much more often than they are backed up, and little attention has been devoted to thinking through how they might be substantiated or to what 'the commodification of everything' actually means. This paper contributes to contemporary debates over capitalism, commodification and politics by suggesting ways that commodification-of-everything arguments can be better specified and evaluated. It identifies four variants of commodification-of-everything claims; reviews and critiques the literature's uses of the terms 'commodity', 'everything' and 'thing'; and articulates three possible definitions of 'the commodification of everything' that raise additional questions about defining 'sale' and 'market' and the implications of thinking of things as commodities. The conclusion suggests reframings of the relationship between capitalism and commodification that seek to preserve the force of commodification-of-everything claims while avoiding their pitfalls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As markets for kosher food have expanded globally in recent decades, multiple rabbinical authorities and kosher certification bodies have emerged to protect – and project – the boundaries of what is permissible for Jewish consumers. In this paper, we explore how, as kosher food has become more widely available in supermarkets and global food businesses, there has been a concurrent growth in demand within some Jewish communities for kosher goods produced in line with ever more strictly observed Jewish dietary laws (kashrus). Drawing on research on kosher markets and consumption practice in Manchester in the North of England, UK, we interrogate the multiple kosher ontologies enacted in markets, and the wider effects of this multiplicity on consumption practice(s). We conclude with some theoretical reflections on the ontological politics of qualification in markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of a key feature of competitive markets on moral behavior: the possibility that a competitor might step in and conclude the deal if a conscientious market actor forgoes a profitable business opportunity for ethical reasons. In a series of experiments, we study whether people invoke the replacement excuse, that is, the argument "if I don't do it, someone else will," to justify narrowly self-interested actions. Our data are consistent with the possibility that the existence of a clear social norm of moral conduct can limit the impact of the availability of the replacement excuse on behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current environmental crisis calls for new sustainable materials and products. Mycelium-based materials are grown by fungi onto solid ligno-cellulosic substrates and are promising sustainable materials which still face barriers to entry. This review discusses the challenges and prospects for making mycelium products. First, the technical challenges, properties needs and scientific knowledge gaps are reviewed. Then, methods to tailor the performance of mycelium-based materials are proposed, using synthetic or natural means. Living mycelium-based materials are also considered as an interesting alternative. The potential market opportunities for these products and their distribution are also discussed along with the public acceptance and perception. Overall, this paper complements current reviews on mycelium materials fabrication and properties by highlighting key gaps and challenges to address to allow these materials to enter the market. The paper suggests directions of future research and development for including mycelium-based products in daily life and improving the sustainability of the materials commonly used and their production. • One barrier to entry for mycelium products is their biodegradability. • Mycelium products could be made competitive thanks to their biodegradability. • Mycelium materials' properties can be tailored using synthetic or natural means. • Mycelium-based materials can also be used as living engineering materials. • Positive public perception could increase by adopting holistic views of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This debate paper asserts that implementation science needs to incorporate a key concept from entrepreneurship-market demand-and demonstrates how assessing an innovation's potential market viability might advance the pace and success of innovation adoption and sustainment. We describe key concepts, language distinctions, and questions that entrepreneurs pose to implementation scientists-many of which implementation scientists appear ill-equipped to answer. The paper concludes with recommendations about how concepts from entrepreneurship, notably market viability assessment, can enhance the translation of research discoveries into real-world adoption, sustained use, and population health benefits. The paper further proposes activities that can advance implementation science's capacity to draw from the field of entrepreneurship, along with the data foundations required to assess and cultivate market demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a transformation in the number and the scope of criminal laws relating to forms of market misconduct. Surprisingly, however, this area of criminal law is not one that has been systematically explored in recent writing about criminalisation. However, concepts such as white-collar crime, or financial crime, which are widely used to describe this area, are poorly defined and offer little analytic clarity. This paper argues that to take market crimes seriously it is necessary to focus on what is distinctive about markets and about market misconduct as a form of wrongdoing. This allows us to see the area as a whole and identify certain common features based on central institutional features of markets and the role that criminal law has played in protecting them – notably ensuring competition, preventing exploitation, and embedding trust. This approach, then, can be a means of raising wider questions about our understanding of the relationship between criminal law and the market in modern society – and the role that criminal law can or should play in regulating those markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines a peasant society's interface with modernization, essentially the penetration of capitalist relations of production in the hills of Manipur. The space for labour has changed and has become commoditized. It is no longer the bonds of kinship, operative through families of clans and kindred, which govern production and distribution. Though there are a sizable population of rural poor, mostly landless labourers, who are dependent on agriculture as their primary source of livelihood, the introduction of peasants to commercial market economy have made them a vulnerable prey of the middlemen who exploit them in the business transactions. The outcome is the ensuing dwindling interest of the peasants in agriculture production as it is no longer considered to be a productive enterprise. This is despite the fact that they have no alternative vocation or source of livelihood or resource capital to fall back on. The study concludes that the peasants need to be encouraged by the state keeping in mind their important contribution to the state's economy and subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The figure of the intermediary, agent, manager or representative of sportsmen and women has been discussed and much debated. The sports system itself has made every effort to regulate this figure, in the majority of disciplines, trying to shed light and clarify the scope, rights and obligations of the agent, but, above all, trying to control their power and the influence they generate not only on a sporting level, but also in the economic market, through the lex sportiva. To date, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association has enacted four regulations, and barely a year ago, FIFA announced a new regulatory twist with the forthcoming entry and publication of the Regulations on Agents, which is the subject of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue on food vending in the city. It contextualizes a collection of papers on street food and markets across time and global space that authors submitted before the 2020 pandemic. Focusing specifically on the mobilization of urban space for food provisioning and microenterprise, we theorize markets beyond the singular narrative of capital accumulation. Given the particular moment of its publication – which comes almost one year after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus to be a pandemic in March 2020 – our introduction probes the impact of COVID-19 on food vendors as well as on the cities that sustain them. Drawing on examples from cities such as New Delhi, New York City, Los Angeles and beyond, we comment on how the pandemic has unleashed threats to livelihoods and liveliness, and we also draw attention to the possibility of new social and economic opportunities in this moment of crisis, including innovative uses of urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the benefits of using futures to manage price risk are widely recognised, only certain groups of farmers have suitable futures at their disposal. This paper discusses an innovative instrument, developed in the Belgian-Dutch pear market, that provides an alternative to futures markets by creating a market for price swaps. Thus, the instrument provides some benefits of market-traded derivatives (like futures) while remaining a relatively simple instrument, which requires fewer market transactions. The paper describes key properties of the swap contracts and the platform used to trade them. In addition, it compares the conditions required for establishing price swap markets and futures markets. Thus, our study informs the design of similar risk management instruments for commodities and contexts where futures are absent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the main indicators reflecting the evolution of the peach and nectarine production and marketing sector in Romania for the period 2012-2017. The most important indicators which are analyzed refers are production of peach and nectarine at the national level, but also macroregional and regional, the average level of price for each of them, the value of import and export. From an economic point of view, peach plantations are a particular importance, occupying the third place, after apple and plum. In Romania, the peach occupied significant areas, but after 1990, they have diminished massively. Peach plantations in Romania is more popular compared to nectarine. The data used in the paper was taken from the National Institute of Statistics and specialized international sites. The results of this analysis have been highlighted in relevant tables and graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the pressing challenges of poverty, climate change and disasters, identifying opportunities for interventions that offer positive outcomes across the trifecta of development, adaptation and disaster risk reduction is critically needed. While the overlaps between these streams can be straightforward in theory, practical opportunities for convergence are often lacking. Drawing on 10 focus groups with women market vendors who are part of the UN Women's Markets for Change programme in Vanuatu, this paper explores how markets as places can be useful entry points for this trifecta. Marketplaces can be important sites for developing capabilities and empowering women. As transient and interactive spaces, marketplaces also have inherent strengths that can be built upon and utilised to heighten intervention reach and foster positive outcomes across the development‐adaptation‐disaster trifecta. This paper encourages further exploration into the capacity of marketplaces to achieve this trifecta of outcomes across various scales and locations, and to find solutions to existing challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do transnational integration regimes (TIRs) shape domestic developmental capacities to benefit from trade integration? Some scholars acknowledge the passive influence TIRs can have on domestic capacities to spur development. Others conceive of TIRs as active agents of change but disagree as to whether their effects are positive or negative. This paper takes issue with some of these approaches and reveals important caveats of others by investigating how the shallow mode of transnational market integration shapes domestic developmental capacities. The paper uses the developmental pathway of Ukraine's automotive industry as a case study. Strikingly, the sector maintained its peripheral position despite initial developmental features that made it as good an investment destination for multinationals as automotive sectors in other peripheral economies that eventually became more integrated in transnational value chains. I argue that it needs strong states being able to use the opportunities offered by the shallow mode of integration for development. By contrast, weak states can hardly shield themselves against capture by rent-seeking networks, since TIRs only provide limited assistance for building developmental capacities in the context of shallow integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the current situation of small-scale fishing in Puerto Madero, Chiapas, based on empirical information collected in situ through ethnographic methods such as observation and interview. First, to give a general characterization of the activity, I briefly contextualize the study area and retrieve discussions from maritime anthropology. Then, I identify the social stakeholders involved in the process from capture to commercialization, and characterize three specific ways for obtaining and distributing fishery products that complement each other to diversify production and markets. Finally, my ethnographic research concludes with the discussion of some problems that, in the perspective of the interlocutors, affect fishing nowadays, which will serve as baseline for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common problem in many mature markets is how to deal with congestion-a situation in which transaction requests from market participants cannot be accommodated in an expedited manner. This paper examines the congestion problem in sequential Dutch auction markets. Transactions in these markets typically involve perishable goods, making market clearing speed crucial. Traditionally, sequential Dutch auctions have been implemented with fast-paced auction clocks that process equally attractive bids in the order they arrive and only award the first bidder as the winner of each round, which can lead to serious congestion in case of a demand surge. We propose a hybrid mechanism that capitalizes on the discrete nature of the auction clock and batches together the highest bids, allowing multiple transactions at the same price in each round. To evaluate the performance of the hybrid mechanism, we first develop a game-theoretic model comparing the hybrid mechanism to the traditional sequential Dutch auction mechanism. Our model predicts that the hybrid mechanism will achieve higher operational efficiency without compromising allocative efficiency. We then complement the theoretical analysis by evaluating the hybrid mechanism through a quasi-natural field experiment. The empirical analysis of the field data shows that the hybrid mechanism can significantly speed up the market clearing process and increase price stability without affecting the expected revenue. Our findings shed new light on the design and operation of multi-unit auctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively few studies have explored the ways in which 'middle tier' institutional arrangements in education, such as school districts and local authorities, are responding to New Public Management reforms characterized by centralization, decentralization, marketization and disintermediation. This paper analyses these issues, drawing on governance and path dependency theories, together with evidence from five locality case studies in England. It finds that the process and impact of 'middle tier' disintermediation is uneven and often fraught, with significant implications for place-based coherence, equity and legitimacy. It shows how national hierarchical mechanisms work in concert to require and/or incentivise change across local school systems, most obviously by reducing the remit and capacity of traditional Local Authorities. This process can open up new opportunities for emerging and existing actors to work together through network and community forms of governance to counteract the negative impact of fragmentation, a process dubbed 'middle out' change. However, responses and outcomes vary widely across the five localities and productive 'middle out' change is by no means a given, so the article analyses the processes at work and their impact across different contexts. It concludes by assessing implications for research, policy and practice in contemporary education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern mainstream macroeconomics is characterised by its reliance on a general equilibrium framework of Walrasian origins, which is crucially associated with perfect competition and statics. To cope with the real economy, macroeconomics has been "forced" to introduce imperfections and frictions of various kinds into the perfectly competitive model. This raises, argues the paper, significant conceptual and analytical difficulties and tensions. There exist, however, other views of competition and markets which could provide more solid and fruitful foundations to the analysis of the macro-economy. After a selective examination of some contributions to the development of the notion of perfect competition, the paper looks at how modern mainstream macroeconomics dealt with general equilibrium and deviations from it. The paper argues that these alleged deviations from the perfectly competitive case should rather be regarded as inherent features of market economies. Dealing with them more satisfactorily requires calling on a different view of the working of the economy instead of trying to correct and amend the imaginary case of perfect competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of Russian gambling market, policies, and research. Following a series of legal reforms since 2006, the Russian gambling market context has become highly restrictive but gradually expanding. The National Lottery and bookmaking industries are increasingly popular but online gambling remains prohibited and casino and electronic gambling machines are only allowed in gambling zones located in remote corners of the Russian Federation. The illegal markets remain significant. The Federal state has been regaining control over the gambling markets to align regulation and profitability, but the new market environment has also created financial interests among private corporations as well as regional treasuries. Research on problem gambling is also becoming more established, although no prevalence studies on gambling problems have been conducted. The paper concludes by considering needs for further policy attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of biosimilar provides an opportunity for healthcare systems worldwide to reduce costs and ensure affordability as well as accessibility of these pivotal products. This is particularly the case in developing countries with restricted budgets to guarantee the availability of safe and cost-effective drugs. Accordingly, this paper aims to study Iranian pharmaceutical industry to show the development of the biosimilar sector, which has emerged in the wake of an intense global interest in the production and marketing of biosimilar. This paper adopted a descriptive cross-sectional method to investigate the Iranian pharmaceutical industry by focusing on biosimilar products over a fifteen-year period (2002-2016). Results obtained showed an upward trend in the domestic production of biosimilars, which has helped secure the first place for the country in the Middle East. In addition, Iran has laid down strict regulatory guidelines for the approval of locally produced biosimilar. The findings also highlight the significant savings generated for the healthcare system thanks to the manufacturing of non-innovator products. These results suggested that observing global regulatory guidelines and providing safe and cost-effective biosimilars are imperative for health care systems in all countries interested in this promising market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]