International Policy Reform Research Articles

Disentangling derivatives: international policy reforms concerning central counterparties

ABSTRACT After the 2008 financial crisis, international policy reforms were adopted on various aspects of derivatives markets, highlighting the need for precise and consistent rules. We examine the making of international rules concerning the resilience, recovery and resolution of central counterparties (CCPs), which form acritical global financial infrastructure. We argue that regulators played an important role in setting relatively precise and consistent international standards on CCPs over time. Facing common challenges, such as market fragmentation and interlinkages between issues, fostered a problem-solving approach in transgovernmental networks. We also identify the policy coordination tools used by regulators.

Incentivising bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) responsibly: Comparing stakeholder policy preferences in the United Kingdom and Sweden

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plays a central role in scenario pathways that limit global warming in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Yet deliberate policy efforts to incentivise BECCS—whether through amending existing climate policies or introducing entirely new ones—remain rare. In this paper, we contend that BECCS must be incentivised responsibly, through policy-making processes which account for diverse and geographically varying societal values and interests. More specifically, we make the case for responsible incentivisation by undertaking a comparative analysis of stakeholder attitudes to four idealised policy scenarios for BECCS, including representatives of government, business, nongovernmental and academic communities, in the UK and Sweden. The scenarios were: business as usual; international policy reform; national BECCS policy; and national policy for negative emissions technologies. Based on our findings, we recommend that policymakers 1) recognise the need to develop new incentives and make enabling reforms to existing policy instruments; 2) consider the risk of mitigation deterrence in their real world (and not abstracted) contexts; 3) employ multi-instrument approaches to incentivisation that do not overly rely on carbon pricing or 4) force a choice between technology specific or technology neutral policies; and 5) attend to the diversity of stakeholder and wider public perspectives that will ultimately determine the success—or failure—of their policy designs.