Ecological Economics from the Ground Up takes a unique and much-needed bottom-up approach to teaching ecological economics and political ecology, using case studies that focus on a wide range of internationally relevant topics, to teach the principles, concepts, methods and tools of these fields, which are seen as increasingly important in the context of the current triple social, economic and environmental crisis. This book provides learning materials which are grounded in the experience of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), with case studies chosen by CSOs and developed collaboratively with leading ecological economists. The case studies come from Europe, India, Latin America, and Africa, and are presented thematically along three lines: 1) social metabolism and accounting methods, 2) institutions and participation, and 3) valuation and environmental policy tools. Core tools, concepts and glossary terms are embedded in topics chosen as a matter of urgency by activist organizations, related to mining and fossil fuel extraction, integrated transport infrastructure development, deforestation and agro-fuel production, sustainable tourism, waste management, wetlands and water management, payments for ecosystem services, natural disasters and hazards, and corporate accountability. Ecological Economics from the Ground Up has been designed to be an accessible learning aid for students of the sustainability sciences and for those CSOs that have recognised the value that ecological economics and political ecology tools and methods hold for their research and advocacy work.

In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of 'technology' itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it argues that modern technology implies a kind of global 'zero-sum game' involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts. We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was detached from the social relations of exchange which make machines economically and physically possible (in some areas). But even the steam engine that was the core of the Industrial Revolution in England was indissolubly linked to slave labour and soil erosion in distant cotton plantations. And even as seemingly benign a technology as railways have historically saved time (and accessed space) primarily for those who can afford them, but at the expense of labour time and natural space lost for other social groups with less purchasing power. The existence of technology, in other words, is not a cornucopia signifying general human progress, but the unevenly distributed result of unequal resource transfers that the science of economics is not equipped to perceive. Technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society. From the very start it has been a global phenomenon, which has intertwined political, economic and environmental histories in complex and inequitable ways. This book unravels these complex connections and rejects the widespread notion that technology will make the world sustainable. Instead it suggests a radical reform of money, which would be as useful for achieving sustainability as for avoiding financial breakdown. It brings together various perspectives from environmental and economic anthropology, ecological economics, political ecology, world-system analysis, fetishism theory, semiotics, environmental and economic history, and development theory. Its main contribution is a new understanding of technological development and concerns about global sustainability as questions of power and uneven distribution, ultimately deriving from the inherent logic of general-purpose money. It should be of interest to students and professionals with a background or current engagement in anthropology, sustainability studies, environmental history, economic history, or development studies.

The first authoritative study of Japan's environmental problems by the acclaimed environmental economist, placing environmental issues within a socioeconomic context. In providing an historical account of environmental disruption in Japan, the author takes a number of key cases of industrial pollution in the pre-war and post-war periods and illustrates the effectiveness of taking into account socioeconomic affairs. Finally, he proposes a set of concrete countermeasures against environmental problems, applicable to all developed countries today, aimed at achieving a new 'quality of life'. First published in 2000, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

Ecosystems and biodiversity have been degraded over decades due to human activities. One of the critical causes is market failure: the current market only accounts tangible resources and neglects intangible functions, such as climate control and natural hazard mitigation. Under such circumstances in capitalism, land conversion and resource exploitation, which generate financial income, are highly prioritised over conservation, which is not necessarily beneficial in monetary terms. To halt ecosystem degradation, thus, the values of ecosystem services need to be visualised and economic instruments for ecosystem conservation should be further developed. This book focuses on these two aspects and performs several studies, including valuation of ecosystem services, productivity analysis, institutional design of payment for ecosystem services (PES), impact assessment of reduction emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and economic experiment of mitigation banking scheme. From these analysis, economic values of ecosystem services are demonstrated from both supply and demand side, and the directions for improving economic instruments are indicated both directly and indirectly. As many of these analysis are usually conducted in the North America and Europe, this book is unique in geographical focus, namely, Japan, Asia and globe. Also, wide variety of ecosystems are targeted for studies; agricultural lands, forests, wetlands, and marine. Hence, this will be informative introduction for those who desire to study economics of biodiversity and ecosystem services in these regions and of these ecological zones.

During the last ten years the enormous global loss of biodiversity has received remarkable attention. Among the numerous approaches undertaken to stop or lessen this process, access and benefit-sharing (ABS), a market-based approach, has emerged as among the most prominent. In theory, ABS turns biodiversity and genetic resources from an open access good to a private good and creates a market for genetic resources. It internalizes the resources' positive externalities by pricing the commercial values for research and development and makes users pay for it. Users' benefits are shared with the resource holders and set incentives for the sustainable use and the conservation of biodiversity. Carmen Richerzhagen, however, finds that in practice there are significant questions about the effectiveness of the approach in the protection of biodiversity and about the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the commercialization. Utilizing the empirical findings of three case studies of biodiversity-providing countries - Costa Rica, the Philippines and Ethiopia - and one case study of a community of user countries, the European Union (EU), Richerzhagen examines the effectiveness of ABS through the realization of its own objectives.

The 22 papers in this volume illustrate the itinerary of Henry Tulkens on the occasion of his retirement from teaching. The volume presents contemporary analysis of Tulkens classic papers on public sector economics. The collection is structured in four parts: I. Decentralized resource allocation processes for public and private goods - II. Environment, public goods and externalities - III. Efficiency analysis - IV. Fiscal competition and optimality.

The importance of the built environment to environmental protection is well established, with strict environmental regulations now a feature of the working lives of planners, contractors, building designers, and quantity surveyors alike. Those new to, or preparing to join this industry must have an understanding of how their environmental responsibilities relate to their professional responsibilities in economic terms.

Designed as an introductory textbook, Urban and Environmental Economics: An Introduction provides the background information from these disciplines to understand crucial tools and economic techniques. A broad range of theories of the natural and built environments and economics are explained, helping the reader develop a real understanding of the topics that influence this subject, such as:

• the history of economic thought on the built environment
• the economics of shared space in the built environment
• cost-benefit analysis and discounting
• macro-economic tools, measures, and policy
• sustainable development
• resource valuation.

Illustrated throughout, and with lists of further reading in every chapter, this book is ideal for students at all levels who need to get to grips with the economics of the environment within a built environment context. Particularly useful to those studying planning, land economy, environmental management, or housing development.

Published in 1989, Blueprint for a Green Economy presented, for the first time, practical policy measures for 'greening' modern economies and putting them on a path to sustainable development. This new book, written by two of the Blueprint for a Green Economy authors, revisits and updates its main messages by asking, first, what has been achieved in the past twenty years, and second, what more needs to be done to generate a truly 'green economy' in the twenty-first century? Blueprint for a Green Economy had one over-arching theme. Making economies more sustainable requires urgent progress in three key policy areas: valuing the environment, accounting for the environment and incentives for environmental improvement. Today, with the threat of global warming, the decline in major ecosystems and their services, and fears over energy security, achieving these goals is even more vital. The current book first summarizes the main messages from Blueprint for a Green Economy and explains why, given rapid and widespread global environmental degradation, they are still relevant. The book then examines the progress since Blueprint for a Green Economy in implementing policies and other measures to improve environmental valuation, accounting and incentives. Although much has been accomplished, additional advances are still required to green economies successfully. The book highlights the new policies and approaches needed for economic management of today's environmental concerns. Over twenty years later, A New Blueprint for a Green Economy once again emphasizes practical policies for greening modern economies, and explains why such an economic roadmap to a greener future is essential, if modern economies are to develop successfully and sustainably.

The third volume of the series presents contributions to the proceedings of the 12th and 13th annual conference of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Sofia University. The fourteen articles by authors of six nations (Bulgaria, China, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland) have been selected by international peer reviews. The contributions are arranged in the sections theoretic approaches, empirical studies on European countries and contributions to sustainable development in theory and application. The volume contains 33 graphs, 20 tables and three drawings.

Environment: Why Read the Classics? presents six important essays by some of the world's leading environmental thinkers on six of the most emblematic books ever written on the environment. The books - Walden; A Sand County Almanac; Small is Beautiful; Silent Spring; The Limits to Growth; and Our Common Future - taken together have been hugely important in the development of global environmental awareness, activism and policy. The essayists - Viriato Soromenho-Marques, J. Baird Callicott, Jose Lima Santos, Tim O'Riordan, Satish Kumar and Marina Silva - invite readers to reflect on these ground-breaking works and examine their historical importance, as well as what they should mean to us today and what relevance they will have to future generations. More than just books about the environment, these are also philosophical treatises, in that they increase our understanding of the natural world and of ourselves, calling us "to weigh and consider", as Bacon put it. In particular, they make us reflect on the need to constantly redefine the purposes of progress, the economy and society. How we relate to nature is a crucial aspect in the plans we make as a species, and as individuals; and every one of these books inspires a more respectful relationship, both with nature and humanity, and consequently with ourselves. The six essays in this book are the result of a series of conferences organised in Lisbon by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with the support of the American Embassy in Portugal. Its *raison d'etre* was to revisit the ideas that have shaped the environmental movement, seeking inspiration to deal with what looks like a very challenging future. The significance of such timeless concepts is now more apparent than ever; and these evergreen books are full of ideas that retain their spark even in our difficult times. This is what makes them classics. Environment: Why Read the Classics? is a provocative book and will be essential reading for all those concerned about the state of the world.

Over five decades of economic and technical assistance to the countries of Africa and the Middle East have failed to improve the life prospects for over 1.4 billion people who remain vulnerable. Billions of dollars have been spent on such assistance and yet little progress has been made. Persistent hunger and hopelessness threaten more than individuals and families. These conditions foster political alienation that can easily metastasize into hostility and aggression. Recent uprisings in the Middle East are emblematic of this problem. Vulnerable people give rise to vulnerable states. This book challenges the dominant catechism of development assistance by arguing that the focus on economic growth (and fighting poverty) has failed to bring about the promised "convergence." Poor people and poor countries have clearly not closed the gap on the rich industrialized world. Pursuing convergence has been a failure. Here we argue that development assistance must be reconstituted to focus on creating economic coherence. People are vulnerable because the economies in which they are embedded do not cohere. The absence of economic coherence means that economic processes do not work as they must if individual initiative is to result in improved livelihoods. Weak and vulnerable states must be strengthened so that they can become partners in the process of creating economic coherence. When economies do not cohere, countries become breeding grounds for localized civil conflicts that often spill across national borders.

Holistic in approach and rooted in the real world Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology presents a new way of looking at environmental policy; exploring the relationship between ecological economics and industrial ecology. Concentrating on the conceptual background of ecological economics and industrial ecology, this book: provides a selection of recommendations for a product-oriented environmental policy, based on the author's case study of the IPP contributes to the development of a consistent body of knowledge regarding sustainable development. A topical and critical review, this book should be read by academics and policy makers alike, specifically those engaged with the concepts surrounding sustainable development and the rationale for more restrictive environmental policies.

Socially desirable responding (SDR) is an often-reported source of bias in survey interviews. It describes the tendency of a respondent to answer in a way that is socially desirable rather than to answer truthfully. This response bias also threatens the reliability and validity of survey-based environmental valuation techniques such as the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). Therefore, the study deals with the assessment of the conditions for the occurrence of SDR in CVM interviews. A behavioral model is devised to take into account a set of factors triggering SDR responses. The impact of these factors of SDR on willingness to pay (WTP) responses is tested. The results reveal that the relevant factors do not affect WTP statements simultaneously but rather influence them in an independent manner. These findings can improve future CVM studies by identifying respondents who are prone to be influenced by SDR.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen deserves to be called the father of ecological economics. This book connects Georgescu-Roegen's earlier work such as consumer choice theory and a critique of Leontief's dynamic model, with his later ambitious attempt to reformulate the economic process as 'bioeconomics', a theoretical alternative to neoclassical economics.

Interfuel substitution is an issue that is - and will likely remain - an important topic of inquiry for many years, as governments around the world seek to set policies that are intended to restrain carbon emissions or steer economies toward or away from certain fuels. This book contributes to this issue by estimating short- and long-term interfuel substitution elasticities, at the aggregate and sector levels, through the use of the latest advances in microeconometrics as well as recent international data for a number of OECD and non-OECD countries.

In this book Professors Pablo Mart nez de Anguita and John E. Wagner put two disciplines together, regional and ecological economics, presenting a way to understand ecological economic concerns from a regional perspective, and providing a mathematical tool to measure their interrelationships. This book offers different regional economic models that explicitly include the role of the natural resources and pollutants in economic regions through the use of Social Accounting Matrixes and Input-output models.

The main objective of this book is to explore Input-output and Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) models by expanding the accounts to include natural resources and the environment. The proposed models in this book incorporate the forest and other natural resources and pollutants as a component in a larger model of how the economy and environment of larger areas interact. This book will be of interests to postgraduates, researchers and scientists in the fields of regional, resource, environmental, or ecological economics.

This volume assembles a group of eminent scholars to look at the problem of growth and environment from the perspective of environmental regulation. The questions addressed are: How does economic growth interact with regulation, and what are the best approaches to regulation in use today?

The context for the volume is the current situation in China, where twenty years of rapid growth have created a situation in which there are both demands for environmental regulation and needs for choosing a future development path. The advent of "A Macro-Environmental Strategy" for China presents an opportunity to ask how and why China should introduce regulation into its management of its development. The volume includes contributions from leading Chinese experts and established environmental economists from other countries including Timo Goeschl, Ben Groom and Andreas Kontoleon.

The volume looks at both the demand side of environmental regulation and the supply side. The demand side of regulatory intervention examines how regulation operates to supplement existing resource-allocation mechanisms, via effective demand aggregation and implementation mechanisms. The supply side of regulation examines how regulation operates to guide industrial growth down particular pathways, in the pursuit of managed development. Both sides of environmental regulation involve the important issue of implementation and enforcement.

This volume will be of most value to academics and scholars of environmental economics, growth economics, the Chinese economy and policy-makers of environmental regulations.

The ubiquity of the commitment to economic growth, which Purdey refers to as the growth paradigm, is extraordinary. National governments around the world are seized of the same objective. Major international institutions such as the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, IMF and OECD, powerful international organizations such as regional trading blocs and multinational corporations - even civil societies of all kinds enthusiastically pursue a larger economic pie. This book examines the deep origins and rise to prominence of the commitment to economic growth. It explains why, despite the diversity of regime types, levels of development, cultures and other divisions typical of international relations, all major actors in the modern global polity pursue an identical political priority. Purdey critically examines the growth paradigm highlighting its normative foundations and its environmental impact, especially climate change. Using a neo-Gramscian approach, Purdey re-engages the 'limits to growth' controversy, identifying the commitment to growth as a form of utopianism that is as dangerous as it is seductive. By illuminating and interrogating the history, politics and morality of the growth paradigm, this book shifts the terrain of the limits debate from instrumental to ethical considerations. It will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, international relations, environmental studies and ethics.

How should we conduct economics in an era of climate change, natural resource depletion and population increase? These issues are systemic, and involve great uncertainties and long time horizons. This book contends that the free-market economics that has dominated capitalist democracies in recent decades is not up to the task; that the welfarist economics that preceded it, while preferable, also has inadequacies; and that what is required is an economics founded on ecological principles, greater respect for the laws of natural science, and a moral commitment to a sustainable future. The book commences with an exposition of major aspects of orthodox macroeconomic and microeconomic theory. It then explores the bounds of orthodox theory in relation to ethics, liberalism, ideology, society, the international economy, globalization, and the environment, and seeks lessons for a future economics. Issues raised by natural resource use and climate change are given particular prominence. Many of the issues of critical importance in coming decades involve not private goods but public goods: goods which markets are ill-equipped to deal with. In the resolution of these issues political processes will need to be engaged. The availability to each individual of clean air, clean water and adequate sustenance, goods which cannot be provided for by economic production alone, are of central concern. While acknowledging the importance of market processes, the author argues in favour of a more deliberative and democratic economy, the greater engagement of civil society, environmental human rights and responsibilities, and in favour of a World Environment Organization, change in the conduct of the World Trade Organization, and for economists to accept moral responsibility for the policies they advocate. Specific case studies are given and potential policies outlined. This book will be of interest not only to economists but also to citizens generally and students concerned with public affairs.

The four decades of neoliberalism, globalisation and financialisation have produced crises - financial and pandemic - and rising inequality. The climate emergency threatens the future of the planet. This book explores many dimensions of the background to these crises. There is the development of policy agendas to address the climate emergency. The rise in inequality is studied in terms of impacts of financialisation and the relationships between growth and inequality. The record of the neoliberal experiment in the USA is critically examined. The roles of financial institutions including public banks and micro-finance are explored, as is the need for improved financial oversight in the Economic and Monetary Union. The growth of global value chains has been a major aspect of globalisation, and the question is examined of whether such chains provide a ladder for development. Globalisation has also featured trade imbalances and large capital flows, and their causes and effects are examined with respect to China and South Africa respectively. This volume will be of great value to students, scholars and professionals interested in political economy, economic thought, climate change, sustainability and business studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, International Review of Applied Economics.

This book is designed for those scholars, students, policy-makers - or just curious readers - who are looking for heterodox thinking on the issue of environmental economics and policy. Contributions to this book draw on multiple streams of institutional and evolutionary economics and help build an approach to environmental policy that radically diverges from mainstream prescriptions. Institutions and technologies - and not only markets - are at the heart of a systemic and dynamic analysis of those structural changes which are needed to create a sustainable economy. Actors for change - and their ability to influence politics and policy - are explicitly taken into consideration. These issues are analyzed from different viewpoints by contributors to the book: some focus on behavior and institutions, others analyze the interaction of economic and technological dynamics; some provide sectoral case studies and others have the ambition to provide the reader with an overall picture. But all authors view environmental policy as a combination of actions that can trigger - and make viable - those structural changes which are needed to reach sustainability.

This book is the first to present in a systematic manner the application of game theory to fisheries management at both international and national levels. Strategic interaction among fishers and nations exploiting fishery resources is an inescapable fact of life. This has long been recognized at the international level, and is becoming increasingly recognized at the national/regional level. It follows, therefore, that, in order to be able to analyse effectively the management of these resources, the theory of strategic interaction game theory must be brought to bear. In this book the step-by-step development of the game theory is accompanied by numerous applications to the real world of fisheries management policy. As such, it is designed to appeal to policy makers and stakeholders, as well as to graduate students in Economics.

Policy and management decisions are often made on financial grounds. However, the economic value of the benefits that people derive from ecosystems, that is, ecosystem services, may not be fully recognised and hence ecosystem considerations may not be incorporated adequately into decision-making processes. This is particularly true for regulating services, the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes, the valuation of which requires an interdisciplinary approach. In essence, valuation is a problem solving strategy and a problem is a problem, it does not respect the boundary of any particular discipline.

The valuation of regulating services is an evolving field of ecological economics. In this book, Dr. Pushpam Kumar and Dr. Michael D. Wood have invited some of the foremost international experts in the field of ecosystem services valuation to contribute chapters on the valuation of regulating services and highlight some of the main obstacles to the implementation and acceptance of these methodologies in the context of decision-making. The contributors explore the theoretical underpinning of valuation of ecosystem services and demonstrate ways in which these theories can be applied to case-specific problems in order to inform decision-making processes.

This collection clarifies some of the doubt and uncertainty regarding the valuation of regulating services. Innovative methodologies in this field have started to emerge and in coming years there may be much further discussion on this topic as methodologies and understanding continue to evolve. This is a highly active area of interdisciplinary research with far reaching social and environmental implications, and this book should be of interest to those who are new to the field, as well as established experts, in moving both theory and practice forward.

Eco-innovation is becoming a conceptual reference point for many regional and international public policies and management strategies. This field of research has been focusing on how environmental innovation is particularly related to the intensity of emissions and economic performance. There are two reasons for this growing interest. The first is that environmental performance is one of the main economic policy goals of European countries, thanks to its relevance to the Lisbon Strategy and the Goteborg priorities for sustainable development. The second, which is partly linked to the first, is related to the growing impact of environmental regulation on private sector activity in many European countries.

This volume brings together microeconomics studies on firms eco-innovation and economic performance, both in the industrial and service sector, with a sector-based perspective rooted mainly in the exploitation of NAMEA data at regional level, and finally with a macroeconomic analysis of the environment, income and welfare.

This collection brings together the best of recent research in the interlinked areas of eco-innovation and income-environment relationships studies, and in its entirety is an excellent source of knowledge for postgraduates, researchers and students of Environmental and Ecological Economics alike. As well as fully developing the theoretical aspects of its topics, these essays are also strongly policy-oriented and will be of interest to anyone seeking information on an applied perspective.

This is a companion book to Earthscan's 2010 book Climate Change Adaptation and International Development. This book consists of summarised case studies looking at climate change mitigation specifically in Asia, the region producing the most greenhouse gas emissions. It examines international development from the perspective of climate change mitigation and looks at how international communities and donors support developing nations by funding, technical assistance and capacity building.