Frontiers In Ecological Economic Theory And Application

Research on the cutting edge of economics, ecology, and ethics is presented in this timely study. Building from a theoretical critique of the tradition of cost-benefit analysis, the contributors lay the foundation for a macroeconomics of environmental sustainability and distributive justice. Attention is then turned to three of the most critical areas of social and environmental applied research - biodiversity, climate change, and energy. The contributors redefine progress away from growth and toward development. To this end, the first section of the book tackles the dominant framework used in the US today to evaluate tradeoffs between economic growth and its inherent externalities. Succeeding chapters cover a wide variety of studies related to biodiversity health and energy. Each section is anchored with overviews by top scholars in these areas - including Herman Daly, Carl McDaniel, Stephen Schneider, and Nathan Hagens - and followed by detailed analyses reflecting the transdisciplinary approach of ecological economics. Students and scholars of ecological, environmental, and natural resource economics, sustainability sciences, and environmental studies will find this book of great interest. Non-profit and government agencies in search of methods and cases that merge the study of ecology and economics will also find the analyses of great practical value.

Economic Theory for Environmentalists is a much-needed and heralded new book that examines the implications of neoclassical economic theory and how it relates to the environment and environmental activity. It addresses the ongoing conflict between market forces and environmental integrity and explains how neoclassical economic theory views the relationship between economic activity and the natural world. Each chapter outlines the concepts of economic theory and the relevance of its environmental and policy implications. It focuses on both micro and macro-economics. Policy tools such as price and income elasticities, consumer surplus and methods for measuring the economic value of environmental resources are discussed. A case study which examines a range of policy options is presented. Examples are also given throughout the text to illustrate regional and international policy questions. Presented in a simple and easy to understand manner, this valuable book is suited for anyone dealing with environmental, economic, or policy issues.

We live under the illusion of progress: as long as GDP is going up and prices stay low, we accept poverty and pollution as unfortunate but inevitable byproducts of a successful economy. In fact, the infallibility of the free market and the necessity of endless growth are so ingrained in the public consciousness that they seem like scientific fact. Jon Erickson asks, why? With the planet in peril and humanity in crisis, how did we get duped into believing the fairytale of economics? And how can we get past the illusion to design an economy that is socially just and ecologically balanced? In The Progress Illusion, Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his own experience as a young economist inoculated in the 1980s era of “greed is good,” Erickson shows how pseudoscience came to dominate economic thought. He pokes holes in the conventional wisdom of neo-classical economics, illustrating how flawed theories about financial decision-making and maximizing efficiency ignore human psychology and morality. Most importantly, he demonstrates how that thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy. The result has been a system that perpetually concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, while depleting the natural resources on which economies are based. While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. This new brand of economics is both gaining steam in academia and supporting social activism. The goal is people over profit, community over consumption, and resilience over recklessness. Erickson shows crafting a new economic story is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.

This is a book of uncompromising technical excellence, which does exactly what it promises to do: chart the cutting-edge frontiers of environmental and ecological economics, for the benefit of graduate students, professional academics, and policy making elites. The authors are mostly academic leaders in the field, the topics are hot . . . the contributors make the links between abstract theorizing and the concrete mental framing of issues that is a prerequisite for sound policy design . . . The papers in this collection exhibit rigorous and robust analytical frameworks, presented intuitively in clear words as well as mathematically, and harnessed to wide-ranging up-to-date bibliographies which quickly open the door into recent literature . . . this will be a book to keep on a convenient shelf for reference purposes . . . it is hard to imagine a graduate student reading this book and failing to spot opportunities to colonize new theoretical territory beyond the present frontier, or to explore empirically the areas outlined in these chapters. Geoffrey Bertram, Papers in Regional Science Top European and American scholars contribute to this cutting-edge volume on little-researched areas of environmental and resource economics. Topics include spatial economics, poverty and development, experimental economics, large-scale risk and its management, organizational economics, technological innovation and diffusion and many more. The common thread is the language and methodology of economics, yet the work aims to reach an audience wider than academia; others such as researchers and policymakers, in the public sector, professional staff in research institutes and think tanks, and environmental consultants will all benefit from an awareness of these crucial issues which, if not considered now, will become the problems of the future.

As concerns about humankind’s relationship with the environment move inexorably up the agenda, this volume tells the story of the history of the concept of ecology itself and adds much to the historical and philosophical debate over this multifaceted discipline. The text provides readers with an overview of the theoretical, institutional and historical formation of ecological knowledge. The varied local conditions of early ecology are considered in detail, while epistemological problems that lie on the borders of ecology, such as disunity and complexity, are discussed. The book traces the various phases of the history of the concept of ecology itself, from its 19th century origins and antecedents, through the emergence of the environmental movement in the later 20th century, to the future, and how ecology might be located in the environmental science framework of the 21st century. The study of ‘ecological’ phenomena has never been confined solely to the work of researchers who consider themselves ecologists. It is rather a field of knowledge in which a plurality of practices, concepts and theories are developed. Thus, there exist numerous disciplinary subdivisions and research programmes within the field, the boundaries of which remain blurred. As a consequence, the deliberation to adequately identify the ecological field of knowledge, its epistemic and institutional setting, is still going on. This will be of central importance not only in locating ecology in the frame of 21st century environmental sciences but also for a better understanding of how nature and culture are intertwined in debates about pressing problems, such as climate change, the protection of species diversity, or the management of renewable resources.

This book explores a series of connected themes focused on the role economics and other influential forms of theory and thinking have played in creating the current predicament and the scope for alternatives and how they might be framed. Thirty years have passed since the inception of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the beginning of policy on climate change. Thirty wasted years. To most politicians, long-term collective interest has been denominated in meaningless units of time, a never and forever that has continually delayed action. From complacency has come potential disaster, and we are now living in a time of climate emergency and ecological breakdown. The next decade is a pivotal period requiring fundamental change. But numerous impediments remain. Continual material, energy and economic growth on a planetary scale are manifestly impossible, and yet economic theory takes these as a given and political leadership and policy seem unwilling to accept brute reality. Instead, they offer a series of implausible commitments and pledges rooted in technofixes, without addressing the fundamental drivers of the problems the world faces. The edited volume explores the issues and offers a variety of ways to think through the problems at hand, from postgrowth, degrowth and social ecological economics to policy assemblage and transversalism. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Globalizations.

Artículos originales publicados en diferentes revistas entre 1984 y 1995, divididos en 4 apartados: Creando una economía ecológica; Circulación de energía y mercancías en sistemas económicos y ecológicos; Modelos y análisis de sistemas económicos y ecológicos; Incentivos e instituciones.