The Blurring of the Public/Private Boundary

Abstract

CDM centers can be seen as policy experiments for determining how much state intervention is necessary and conducive to the functioning of market mechanisms in China. Innovation theory and practical experience with other kinds of market-facilitation organizations suggest that state interventions can have positive effects on market development if the market-facilitation organizations adopt the role of catalyst for the diffusion of the CDM, for example by providing several public goods, such as information and knowledge for private market actors. Empirical findings from the comparative case studies reveal that the CDM centers were effective only in the provision of such public goods in the early market phases, but later on opted to concentrate on the pursuit of private goods (mainly service fees for project development). These results were disappointing in two respects. First, the Chinese case studies showed that the CDM centers did not resemble the textbook ideal of the market-facilitation organization, but rather actors that — after the initial provision of essential public goods — pursued profit and neglected their public mandates. Second, CDM centers functioning as hybrid actors also disappoint the hope that hybrid actors might offer a new solution to governance problems, supplanting inefficient public administrations in the provision of public goods.KeywordsPublic GoodOECD CountryProvincial GovernmentPrivate ActorPrivate GoodThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.