Expedient economization: Performing emissions trading in the United States, 1960–1990

This paper studies the rise of emissions trading as a prominent example of the neoliberal economization of environmental policy. While often portrayed as a textbook case of the performativity of economics, a historical study of the early years of emissions trading in the United States (1960–1990) highlights the non-performativity of economics: initially economics had no impact on the policies of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that instituted emissions trading. This history exposes a latent tension between research on the performativity of economics and the economization research programmes. The paper argues that an undue focus on proving the performativity of economics comes at the expense of studying the actual forms of co-performation in economization processes. It shows that the early history of emissions trading is better understood as a case of ‘expedient economization’, in which economization was essentially a by-product of pragmatic policy responses to political concerns, and where the role of economics was secondary.