Global Environment and Trade Study Global Environment and Trade Study The Global Environment & Trade Study (GETS) was a non-profit research institute established in 1994 to study the complex linkages between international trade and environmental sustainability. GETS supported numerous research projects on the legal, economic, and ecological aspects of trade and environment. GETS was centered at Yale University. GETS also studied the expanding role of civil society in global governance. In 2004, the GETS Board decided that a sufficient amount had been accomplished over the decade, and that it was time to terminate the project. GETS had four major accomplishments: The founders of GETS were:
The formalist vs substantivist debate The formalist vs substantivist debate The opposition between substantivist and formalist economic models was first proposed by Karl Polanyi in his work "The Great Transformation" (1944). Polanyi argued that the term "economics" has two meanings: the formal meaning refers to economics as the logic of rational action and decision-making, as rational choice between the alternative uses of limited (scarce) means. The second, substantive meaning, however, presupposes neither rational decision-making nor conditions of scarcity. It simply refers to the study of how humans make a living from their social and natural environment. A society's livelihood strategy is seen as an adaptation