Economic Policies for the Sustainability Transition: Approaches, Outcomes and Prospects in the EU and China

The paper introduces and summarises the main results of the papers collected in the Soecial Issue 'Economic policies for the sustainability transition'. The papers show that, in spite of the huge differences between the EU27 and China, in both cases, environmental and climate-energy policies, as well as circular economy policies, can be effective in driving a sustainability transition or some of its core processes. Furthermore, effectiveness emerges for a broad range of different policy approaches. This conclusion does not mean that policies are also efficient in the conventional meaning of delivering results at the minimum possible cost in an ex ante predictable way. Instead, they induce responses by industries and the socio-economic systems that can be initially contrasted, uncertain, unpredictably evolving, and differentiated across sectors and countries, as in the case of the EU, and across regions/provinces/cities, as in the case of China. A clear-cut conclusion emerging from the papers is that innovation, be it technological, social, or institutional, is the key lever to make policies effective.