This volume provides an up-to-the-minute review of the open economy approach to analysing environmental problems and policies, which has produced a wealth of research over the past decade. It contains non-technical, issue-oriented, and comprehensive surveys written by specialists in international and environmental economics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students of economics and political science.

Policy failures in environment and development have been blamed on frag mented and eclectic policies and strategies. The 1992 United Nations Con ference on Environment and Development, the 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro, called therefore for an integrated approach in planning and policy making to achieve long-term sustainable growth and development. The Con ference also recognized in its action plan, the Agenda 21, that integrated poli cies need to be supported by integrated information, notably requiring the implementation of integrated environmental and economic accounting by its member States. During the preparations for the Rio Summit, scientists and practitioners of national accounting met in a Special Conference on Environmental Account ing, organized by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW) in Baden, Austria. Their aim was to explore the need for and methodologies of adjusting national accounts for environmental reasons. National accountants had faced mounting criticism that conventional accounting neglected new scarcities in natural capital, as well as the social cost of environmental degradation. The result of their deliberations was a draft manual, later issued by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) as a handbook of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting."

This Pivot offers a comprehensive cross-country study of the effects of large-scale resource extraction in Asia Pacific, considering how large-scale extractive industries engender contentious social, political and economic questions. Addressing the strong association in Melanesia between extractive resource industries and a spectrum of violence ranging from interpersonal to collective forms, it questions whether islands are particularly potent spaces for the contentious politics that attend enclave economies. The book brings island studies literature into a closer conversation with political and economic geography, demonstrating that islands provide rich spaces for the investigation of the socio-spatial relations at the heart of human geography's theoretical cannon. The book also has a real-world policy edge, as the sustained and growing dominance of extractive industries, in concert with the highly contentious politics that they engender, places them at the centre of efforts to understand state formation, political reordering and the on-going negotiation of political settlements of various types throughout post-colonial Melanesia. It considers how extractive resource industries can shape processes of state formation, shedding new light on Melanesia's resource curse.

As an essential component for economic growth, energy has a significant impact on the global economy. The need to meet growing energy demand has prompted cutting-edge innovation in clean technology in an attempt to realise environmental and cost objectives, whilst ensuring the security of energy supply. This Handbook offers a comprehensive review of the economics of energy, including contributions from a distinguished array of international specialists. It provides a thorough discussion of the major research issues in this topical field of economics.Themes addressed include the theory of energy supply, demand and policy, empirical modelling of energy demand, holistic energy models, an analysis of coal, gas, electricity, oil and the 'markets' within which they operate, and a discussion of the current key energy policy issues. The topics of pricing, transmission, regulation, security, energy efficiency, new technologies and climate change are also discussed. The International Handbook on the Economics of Energy presents a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art research making it an indispensable reference for researchers, advanced students, practitioners and policy-makers alike.

Considers the role of economics in discussions about the depletion of finite stocks of natural resources including oil.

Accessible to students and practitioners without an advanced degree in environmental economics, this essential reference work pinpoints the role of the economy in both creating and solving many of the world's most pressing environmental challenges. Given the number and scope of environmental problems we face today, everyone from high school students to policy makers to concerned citizens should understand how the economy works and grasp how meltdowns-both economic and environmental in nature-can be avoided. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: An Encyclopedia offers the critical information needed to comprehend these complex issues. The entries cover topics in a manner parallel to how environmental economics is commonly taught, addressing basic concepts, environmental policy, natural resource economics, market failure, exhaustible and renewable resources, benefit-cost analysis, and applied welfare economics. Additionally, the book includes entries on key concepts of economics, movements, events, organizations, important individuals, and research areas relevant to the study of environmental and natural resource economics. This work stands alone as the only title currently offering such a breadth of coverage and level of detail written specifically for readers without specialized knowledge of environmental economics. Provides stand-alone, easy-to-understand, politically neutral, and factually driven entries by leading experts on all the major themes and topics in environmental and natural resource economics Supplies a usable framework for readers without an advanced degree in the subject to understand debates in the public forum on environmental and natural resource economics Delivers the most comprehensive overview of one of the fastest-growing subdisciplines of economics

India has been traditionally well-endowed with large freshwater reserves, but increasing population, urbanization and agricultural growth in recent decades are causing overexploitation of surface and groundwater. As consumption of water grows, wastewater increases significantly and in the absence of proper measures for treatment and management, is polluting existing freshwater reserves. As a result, water pollution has emerged as one of the nation's gravest environmental threats. This book draws a link between water pollution generated by different industries and the various economic activities of the Indian economy using the Input-output framework. It constructs a detailed water pollution coefficient matrix involving different types of water pollutants. The book estimates the total amount of water pollution generated directly and indirectly in different sectors and activities, and also calculates the water pollution content in India's foreign trade sector. It also accounts for defensive expenditure from water pollution and estimates Green GDP for the extent and scope of environmental challenges. Analysis of the result indicates the variation in the pollution content of different economic activities. Finally, the book offers a portfolio of policies and assesses the implications of such policies on pollution generation in India.

In the policy arena, as well as in the academic world, a new challenge is having to deal with the global community. We are increasingly aware that the world is linked through economy-energy-environment interactions. We are increasingly aware, at the same time, that the emergence of the global community does not imply an integrated harmonious world; rather, it is a community where co- tries/regions of different interests and values face each other directly. Global governance has to be achieved through actions of national governments under different motives and constraints. We need to have an analytical tool that is capable of producing a global picture, yet with detailed country resolution. If the world is a better place now compared to 100 years ago in terms of p- capita income, this is due to the industrialization that continued throughout the 20th century. We entered the 21st century knowing that the human aspiration that translates into ever-increasing production may not be tenable in the long run. Sustainability of the global community is at stake. In contrast to inc- mental decision making through the market mechanism that should lead to some optimal state under some assumptions such as perfect knowledge, smooth movement of resources, no externalities, and so forth, we need to have an a- lytical tool to provide us with details of the future state of the world.

Climate change is an inevitable and urgent global challenge with long-term implications for the sustainable development of all countries. To overcome this human crisis, the scientific consensus is driving global action towards low carbon economics. Though this action has to involve all sectors (industries, governments, and citizens) and at all levels (global, national and regional levels), the implementation of climate strategies will predominantly be at the regional level. By establishing an innovative range of model technologies, this book aims to develop systematic quantificational methods, such as uncertain multi-objective programming models and system dynamics models, to provide a new approach to low carbon economics that can serve as a paradigm for general regions. At the same time, it offers decision makers a number of effective strategies for some key issues in regional low carbon development, such as greenhouse gas control, ecological capacity evaluation, regional economic prediction, energy structure optimization, land resource utilization, industrial structure adjustment, low carbon industrial chains, low carbon transportation systems and low carbon tourism. It also provides researchers with a new perspective on how to address social problems using quantitative techniques.

Canada is a well-endowed country that serves as an ideal model to lead the reader through the development of energy, resources, and society historically and into a post-carbon future. The book provides an historical perspective and describes the physical resource limitations, energy budgets, and climate realities that will determine the potential for any transition to renewable energy. Political and social realities, including jurisdiction and energy equality issues, are addressed. However, we cannot simply mandate or legislate policies according to social and political aspirations. Policies must comply with the realities of physical laws, such as the energy return on investment (EROI) for fossil-fuel based and renewable energy systems. EROI is discussed in both historical terms and in reference to the greater efficiencies inherent in a distributed generation, mainly electric, post-carbon society. Meyer explores the often misleading concepts and terms that have become embedded in society and tend to dictate our policy making, as well as the language, social and personal goals, and metrics that need to change before the physical transition can begin at the required scale. This book also reviews what nations have been doing thus far in terms of renewables, including the successes and failures in Canada and across the globe. Ontario's green energy fiasco, and a comparison of the different circumstances of Norway and Alberta, for example, are covered as part of the author's comparison of a wide range of countries. What are the achievements, plans, and problems that determine how well different countries are positioned to make "the transition"? The transition path is complex, and the tools we need to develop and the physical infrastructure investments we need to make, are daunting. At some point in time, Canada and Canadians, like all nations, will be living on 100% renewable energy. Whether the social and technological level that endures sees us travelling to the stars, or subsisting at a standard of living more similar to the pre-fossil fuel era, is far from certain.

Global warming is a serious threat to the stability of world climate and to economic prosperity in some regions. The book offers a theoretical analysis which focuses on double dividend issues. Moreover, the ecological tax reform in Germany and the options of modern energy policy are described and evaluated. The volume presents innovative model simulations and analyzes, in the context of the model, the benefits of a modified tax reform, based on a Schumpeterian approach. Finally, implications for the European Union and other countries are discussed.

Economic assessment of sustainable agricultural practices has continued to mature and to add to our understanding of how we might design policies to ensure an adequate and diverse food supply. This volume presents some of the recent developments and applications in this field and is much more nearly self-contained than typical edited volumes. It provides a comprehensive treatment of topics, including a historical perspective leading to current developments in methods and policy. The introductory chapter presents an early history of research by entomologists and economists, tracing the concept of integrated pest management, the nascent organic food industry, and reviewing pesticide policy options debated over the last several decades. The remainder of the volume is divided into four sections focusing on the economic aspects of production, and related policy issues. These four sections encompass the range of advances in theoretical and applied economic analyses concerned with pesticides and sustainable food markets. Chapters present different methodological, ideological, and geographical perspectives from some of the environmental and agricultural economics concerned with pesticides and sustainable production. This volume includes unique contributions that incorporate international experiences and viewpoints concerning both methods and policy. This volume includes material valuable for students in agricultural economics and environmental science, and is essential reading for economists who conduct research in sustainable agriculture. It is also excellent reference for policy analysts.

Applied welfare economics proceeds from the assumption that preferences are fixed and independent of social context. Social psychologists and anthropologists, in contrast, interpret preferences as being strongly shaped by culture and the prevailing social norms. This viewpoint is supported by a wealth of evidence from ethnographies, social surveys, and experimental studies. Integrating theory and evidence from a range of social sciences, the authors argue that the satisfaction derived from material goods depends upon their symbolic meaning, as people use goods to reinforce a positive social identity. They further contend that this calls for the incorporation of status preferences in economic models. The book finds that concerns over social status may lead decision makers to significantly overvalue consumption and undervalue the natural environment. In addition, income and consumption taxes that are normally regarded as 'distortionary' may be necessary to address the social costs of status signalling. Based on the available evidence, the authors argue that failing to account for status preferences can lead to flawed policy prescriptions in debates over optimal taxation, the economics of climate change and Environmental Kuznets Curves. To address this bias, the book offers a tractable, operational, and theoretically grounded approach to the economics of social status. Students and scholars of ecological, environmental and resource economics will find Status, Growth and the Environment to be a highly original and fascinating read. It will also be of great relevance to anyone with an interest in applied welfare economics.

Is economic growth good for the environment? A number of economists have claimed that economic growth can benefit the environment, recruiting political support and finance for environmental policy measures. This view has received increasing support since the early 1990s from empirical evidence that has challenged the traditional environmentalist's belief that economic growth degrades the environment. This book reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on growth and the environment, giving an in-depth empirical treatment of the relationship between the two. Various hypotheses are formulated and tested for a number of indicators of environmental pressure. The test results indicate that alternative models and estimation methods should be used, altering previous conclusions about the effect of economic growth on the environment and offering an insight into the forces driving emission reduction in developed countries.

This book brings together leading experts to assess how and whether the Nazis were successful in fostering collaboration to secure the resources they required during World War II. These studies of the occupation regimes in Norway and Western Europe reveal that the Nazis developed highly sophisticated instruments of exploitation beyond oppression and looting. The authors highlight that in comparison to the heavy manufacturing industries of Western Europe, Norway could provide many raw materials that the German war machine desperately needed, such as aluminium, nickel, molybdenum and fish. These chapters demonstrate that the Nazis provided incentives to foster economic collaboration, hoping that these would make every mine, factory and smelter produce at its highest level of capacity. All readers will learn about the unique part of Norwegian economic collaboration during this period and discover the rich context of economic collaboration across Europe during World War II.

This is the first book to examine the linkages among natural and organizational accidents and disasters in the modern era and clarifies the mechanisms involved and the significance of emerging problems, from the aging of vital infrastructure for the supply of water, gas, oil, and electricity to the breakdown of pensions, healthcare, and other social systems. The book demonstrates how we might check the underlying civilizational collapse and then explore translational systems approaches toward resilient management and policy for sustainability. In Unsafety, the author focuses on the kinds of unnatural disasters and organizational accidents that arise as repercussions of natural hazards. Japan serves as an example, where earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons are common, with the Fukushima nuclear disaster as an outstanding case of this link between natural disasters and organizational accidents. Natural and human-made disasters happen worldwide and cause misery through loss of life; destruction of livelihoods as in agriculture, fisheries, and the manufacturing industry; and interruption of urban life. Unsafety from a disaster in one place increases uncertainty elsewhere, presenting urgent issues in all nations for individuals, organizations, regions, and the state. The author explains that one factor in the Fukushima catastrophe, which followed in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, was the latent deterioration and aging of systems at all levels from the physical to the social, leading through a chain reaction to unsought and unforeseen consequences. Here, the aging of the nuclear reactor system, the breakdown of safety management, and inappropriate instructions from the regulatory authorities combined to create the three-fold disaster, in which technological, organizational, and governmental dysfunction have been diagnosed as reflecting a "systems pathology" infecting all levels.

Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters tells the story of how Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) revolutionized the investing world and the real economy, but is now showing its age. MPT has no mechanism to understand its impacts on the environmental, social and financial systems, nor any tools for investors to mitigate the havoc that systemic risks can wreck on their portfolios. It's time for MPT to evolve. The authors propose a new imperative to improve finance's ability to fulfil its twin main purposes: providing adequate returns to individuals and directing capital to where it is needed in the economy. They show how some of the largest investors in the world focus not on picking stocks, but on mitigating systemic risks, such as climate change and a lack of gender diversity, so as to improve the risk/return of the market as a whole, despite current theory saying that should be impossible. "Moving beyond MPT" recognizes the complex relations between investing and the systems on which capital markets rely, "Investing that matters" embraces MPT's focus on diversification and risk adjusted return, but understands them in the context of the real economy and the total return needs of investors. Whether an investor, an MBA student, a Finance Professor or a sustainability professional, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters is thought-provoking and relevant. Its bold critique shows how the real world already is moving beyond investing orthodoxy.

First written in 1977, Economics of Natural and Environmental Resources presents a collection of articles written in exploration of the economic, social, and ecological problems peculiar to natural and environmental resources. Whilst focusing on the economic theory of natural resources, the contributions also consider geological, technological, and institutional features of particular resources. Policy implications and considerations are central to the text and although the book was published over thirty years ago, the issues discussed remain relevant to today's society.

The visible encroachment of industrial development on the environment, and its unintended consequences, has increased public demand for better environmental management and policy. As policy makers struggle to meet these demands, empirical analysis of the effects of environmental policies is crucial for guiding the development, the implementation, and the evaluation of alternative government interventions and regulatory approaches. Such analysis is scarce, however. The need for empirical studies is particularly large in Europe, where environmental policy debates are still mainly theoretical and tend to reflect different ideological positions more than informed assessments of alternative policies. Empirical Studies of Environmental Policies in Europe presents contributions on empirical environmental policy evaluation. The individual chapters, written by authors from Europe and the US, contain quantitative studies of proposed and implemented environmental policies, at both the micro and macroeconomic levels. The policy issues studied in this volume include the double dividend-hypothesis' of carbon taxation, the political economy of environmental policy development, the voluntary environmental efforts of corporations, the enforcement of environmental regulations, the development of environmental policies in transition economies, and the implementation of environmental policies in the face of transboundary pollution.

Freshwater resources are growing increasingly scarce and conflicts over potable water are becoming more common. In order to deal with these problems and to allocate water, managers and water resource planners must have information regarding the nature of competing water demands. The Economics of Water Demands represents the first comprehensive treatment of economic research directed at understanding the structure of water demands in over a decade. This treatment includes discussions of many facets of water demands, including the economic theory of water demands, econometric and programming models of water demands, the results of empirical models, and the application of water demand information in the design of water management policies.

The first section of the book critically assesses the state of knowledge regarding water demands in each of the major water-using sectors: residential, industrial, and agricultural. The second section examines the demand for sewage treatment and wastewater disposal, as well as water demands in low-income countries. The third section of the book considers the valuation of water use. The final section is concerned with the application of water demand information in the management of water and the forecasting of water demands.

The book traces the historical development of economic research in each of the sections. At the same time, the book also covers the most recent developments in the literature, including the role of risk in agricultural water demands, the estimation of discrete choice models of supply source choice by households in low-income countries, and use of ecological models to assess in-stream water demands.

The Economics of WaterDemands demonstrates the value of applying economic theory and measurement techniques to water demands. The empirical evidence summarized here clearly shows the influential role played by water prices, other commodity prices, incomes, and other economic factors in determining the demand for and the valuation of water resources.

The authors suggest that China's renewable energy system, the largest in the world, will quickly supersede the black energy system that has powered the country's rapid rise as workshop of the world and for reasons that have more to do with fixing environmental pollution and enhancing energy security than with curbing carbon emissions.

This book addresses three big economic challenges from a dynamic perspective: European integration, economic growth, and global climate change. In the light of the recent crises of the European Union (EU), the first part of the book deals with challenges to the real, monetary and fiscal integration of the EU and required institutional adjustments. The second part of the book addresses fundamental challenges of advanced market economies like economic growth and changes of technologies. The final part focuses on the global challenge of climate change from an economic perspective and discusses policy strategies for a successful mitigation of climate change.

Economists often assume that ecosystem and population dynamics are subject to convex, even linear processes. But research by ecosystem and population ecologists suggests that such processes are very often non-convex, for example a possible flip of the Gulf Stream due to fresh water intrusion from melting glaciers. This has dramatic implications for environmental and resource economics, since mistakes in management could prove more costly than imagined.

Power and social inequality shape patterns of land use and resource management. This book explores this relationship from different perspectives, illuminating the complexity of interactions between human societies and nature. Most of the contributors use the perspective of "political ecology" as a point of departure, recognizing that human relations to the environment and human social relations are not separate phenomena but inextricably intertwined. What makes this volume unique is that it sets this approach in a trans-disciplinary, global, and historical framework.