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.

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.

The Economics of Industrial Water Use presents an authoritative collection of the most important articles to have applied economic models and measurement techniques to the topic of industrial water use over the last thirty years. It includes an original introductory chapter which summarizes and critically assesses the literature on this important subject. These papers employ a range of modelling approaches including econometric estimation, linear programming, input-output models, non-market valuation and integrated river basin planning models. They also provide empirical evidence of the significant role played by economic forces in determining industrial water intake, discharge and recirculation. This comprehensive volume will be an indispensable reference source for those with an interest in water's role in industrial applications.

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.

Including work by some of the world's leading economists, engineers, ecologists and social scientists, Water Resources and Economic Development is a unique collection due to its global perspectives and specific focus upon the recent experiences of the developing regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It explores important topics such as basin and regional development, irrigation and agricultural development, water supply, sanitation and health, legal and institutional issues, water pricing and water markets, and policy trends and emerging issues. This authoritative volume will be an invaluable source for students, researchers and policymakers and also for those who would like to be more informed in this key area of development studies.

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.

This book focuses on environmental financing in the process of alignment with the EU. Based on comparative analysis of national environmental strategies and financial needs, and their links with strategic development documents in five selected countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey) the book identifies main achievements and remaining challenges in the main areas of environmental regulation: nature protection, water, waste, air and climate change. For each area the same concept is applied: current situation is presented, followed by an overview of institutional and legal frameworks. Division of competences between actors at the same or at different levels is addressed. Costs of implementation are estimated and possible sources of financing identified.

This book examines the reconstruction of Afghanistan's economy during the US and international occupation of the country between 2001 and 2021. Applying an institutionalist framework and based on extensive empirical data, it focuses on resource allocation by private individuals in manufacturing activities. As such, market-oriented policy adopted in this period is analysed to highlight its suitability in such a context for achieving relatively better and more productive resource allocation. The book underscores 'socially contingent knowledge' and its role in private resource allocation where the private sector's involvement is fledgling, bringing out the limitations and possibilities that this feature entails. It raises important questions and deals with problems that are relevant to contemporary debates in economics and political economy of development.

Putting a price tag on the environment is controversial. This book discusses ethical and political aspects of environmental cost-benefit analysis: why controversies must be expected, why they should be taken seriously, and how they can be handled in practice. Cost-benefit analysis is commonly thought of as a method for ranking projects according to their contributions to social welfare. The starting point of the present book is different. Rather than providing a final ranking, the purpose of a project analysis is to enable participants in a democratic decision-making process to make their own well-founded rankings of projects, according to their own normative views. Since ethical and political views differ, the analysis should be useful as factual background for any reasonable social welfare judgement. This purpose faces the analyst with quite different challenges than the purpose of ranking projects. The argument of the book is based on economic theory, but with a strong emphasis on readability and applicability. It is aimed at those - economists and non-economists alike - who use or are faced with cost-benefit analysis and environmental valuation in their work: politicians, employees of ministries and regulatory agencies, students, journalists, consultants and researchers. No particular prior knowledge of economics is required.

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.

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 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.

The embedding of energy efficiency in the management of individual housing organisations is crucial for the realization of current ambitious energy efficiency policies. This issue is examined for the first time in this book through an analysis of selected case studies in new 'green' buildings, as well as in the retrofitting of existing housing, maintenance and budgeting. The links between policy ambitions, practice and housing management institutions are given particular attention. Thus the book is primarily concerned with how ambitions about energy efficiency are carried forward in investment decisions at the housing estate level. Technical and financial issues relevant for this are also addressed. The editors combine a wealth of experience in comparative research on housing policy and housing management with a strong academic background in housing studies and economics. The book aims to be internationally comparative including a range of countries. A chapter will be devoted to each of the following countries:- Sweden; Denmark; Germany; the Netherlands; England; France; Switzerland; Austria; Czech Republic; Slovenia; Canada. The book will appeal to a large audience of students and academics who are concerned with housing issues, urban policy and politics as well as to those engaged in research in energy efficiency policies in the built environment.

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.

Water is becoming increasingly scarce. If recent usage trends continue, shortages are inevitable. Aquanomics discusses some of the instruments and policies that may be implemented to postpone, or even avoid, the onset of "water crises." These policies include establishing secure and transferable private water rights and extending these rights to uses that traditionally have not been allowed, including altering in-stream flows and ecosystem functions. The editors argue that such policies will help maximize water quantity and quality as water becomes scarcer and more valuable. Aquanomics contains many examples of how this is being accomplished, particularly in the formation of water markets and market-like exchanges of water rights.

Many observers see calamity ahead unless water supplies are harnessed and effectively conserved, and unless water quality can be improved. It is also clear that declining water quality is a serious problem in much of the world, as increasing human activities induce high levels of water degradation. Those who voice these concerns, argue the contributors to this volume, fail to consider the forces for improvement inherent in market political-economic systems that can address water issues. The contributors see water quality in economically advanced countries as improving, and they believe this establishes the validity of market-based approaches.

Groundwater is a vitally important resource and as its use increases, the available supply is depleted, creating a ripple effect of impacts on both the environment and the economy that need to be disseminated to a larger audience of students and practitioners. This second edition of Groundwater Economics accomplishes just that. This two-volume set is a comprehensive work focused on the economic values of groundwater resources and use, and it reinforces the need for a strong economic rationale in decision-making relating to that use. This new edition includes a new chapter on sustainability as well as updating all chapters with a focus on sustainability. It thoroughly explains the economic value of groundwater for sustainable use and needs, with practical examples, and includes thirteen new and updated case studies on the economics of groundwater data for decision-making. It also addresses both local and regional groundwater economic choices through a series of applications at an international level. This set, written by a sustainability professional with decades of experience in managing groundwater use and protection, is written for other professionals as well as students, who need to understand and evaluate water resources and mange their use from a variety of sustainable approaches.

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.

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.

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.

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.