Some economists find markets everywhere and assume that they emerge spontaneously once a set of necessary conditions such as well-defined property rights is fulfilled. Others emphasise the role of organisations and contend that markets are actually less dominant. But despite claims to the contrary, the market concept is hardly analyzed in depth. Nor are there serious attempts to examine empirically where markets exist. Against this background, the paper addresses the question of what is a market? It begins by illustrating how the literature has hitherto defined the concept of a market. On the basis of methodological considerations, which center on the subject matter of economic analysis, the paper provides a revised conceptualisation of markets in terms of those conditions under which stylised facts about relative prices can be observed. The final part of the paper discusses the link between the conceptualisation of a market and the informational role of relative prices highlighted by the Austrian School.Market, Institution, Methodology, Austrian Approach,

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The paper identifies various conceptualisations of green growth with a view to identify the causal mechanisms that can support a green growth policy agenda to investigate the implications of these conceptualisations for measuring progress towards green growth, to identify possible trade-offs and integrate measures, and to explore the governance challenges that a green growth agenda is likely to pose against the background that many environmental problems have a bearing on multiple levels of governance.

Purpose Social sustainability may be assessed using a variety of methods and indicators, such as the social footprint, social impact assessment, or wellbeing indices. The UNEP guidelines on social life cycle assessment (sLCA) present key elements to consider for product-level, life cycle-based social sustainability assessment. This includes guidance for the goal and scope definition, inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation phases of S-LCA. Methods for and studies of the broader scale, life cycle social dimensions of production and consumption are largely unavailable to date. The current study assesses social risks associated with trade-based consumption in EU Member States using a life cycle-based compared to a non-life cycle-based approach in order to assess the valueadded of life cycle thinking and assessment in this context. Methods Social risk refers to the potential for one or more parties to be exposed to negative social conditions that, in turn, undermine social sustainability. In order to shed light on these risks, a macro-scale analysis of the social risk profile of tradebased consumption in the EU Member States has been conducted by combining intra-and extra-territorial import statistics with country-and sector-specific social risk indicator data derived from the Social Hotspots Database. These data cover 17 social risk indicators in five thematic areas, many of which are linked with the sustainable development goals set by the recent United Nations Agenda 2030. The apparent social risk profiles of EU imports have then been assessed based on consideration of country-of-origin social risk data (non-life cycle-based approach) as compared to a life cycle-based social risk assessment which also took into account the distribution of social risk along product supply chains. The intention was to better understand how and to what extent current tradebased consumption within the EU-27 may be associated with socially unsustainable conditions domestically and abroad, and the extent to which life cycle-based consideration of social risk is necessary. Results and conclusions The analysis confirms the importance of a life cycle-based assessment of social risks in support of policies for socially sustainable production and consumption. Moreover, the methods presented herein offer a potentially powerful decision-support methodology for policy makers wishing to better understand the magnitude and distribution of social risks associated with EU production and consumption patterns, the mitigation of which will contribute to socially sustainable development.

This article proposes an alternative conceptualization of freedom of choice. The endeavour is motivated by the view that welfare comprises various capabilities (prominently among them freedom), which have to be measured and compared separately. Starting from a critical appraisal of recent work by economists and political philosophers on axiomatizations of freedom, the suggested conceptualization builds on the idea of freedom as reflecting the range of possible actions open to an individual. I argue both that this conceptualization is better suited to capturing many real world examples than are previous conceptualizations, and that it improves our understanding of the notion of freedom (of choice).