Karl-Goran Maler's work has been a mainstay of the frontiers of environmental economics for more than three decades. This outstanding book, in his honour, assembles some of the best minds in the economics profession to confront and resolve many of the problems affecting the husbandry of our national environments. This book investigates many of the recent advances in economics, in terms of the management of natural resources and environments. The authors also concentrate on other important issues such as control theory for non-convex economic problems, duopoly theory, game theory, local public finance, patent races and population control. In addition, they investigate the difficulties involved in constructing environmental agreements, and detail the potential benefits of marrying together the disciplines of ecology and economics. As a whole, the book effectively illustrates both the power and limitations of economics to shed light on many of today's pressing environmental issues. The diverse range of topics and exceptional quality of the authors - including contributions by Nobel Laureates Kenneth J. Arrow and Robert M. Solow - will make this book essential reading for academics and advanced level students of environmental and resource economics, as well as natural scientists with an interest in resource allocation issues.

This important book sheds light on the ways in which modern tools of welfare economics can be used to assess the benefits and costs of resource conflicts involving hydropower. The chapters highlight key methodological issues in this area; ranging from the intersection between cost benefit analysis and behavioral economics, to the value of load balancing services provided by hydropower. The inclusion of insights from expert contributors from both sides of the Atlantic brings a unique and interesting range of viewpoints to the work.Several factors suggest that resource conflicts involving moving water are likely to be even more difficult to resolve today than they have been in the past. The contributors, top scholars in resource economics, consider a variety of issues through the lens of cost benefit analysis. In the first part of the book, they address specific cases and issues from North America and Europe. The book closes with a more general look at the topic. Academics and students interested in applied welfare economics, especially cost benefit analysis and energy economics, along with government officials in the energy environment nexus and private sector analysts will all find much of interest and value in this volume. Contributors include: J. Duffield, F. Forsund, N. Hanley, L. Hjalmarsson, P.-O. Johansson, Y. Ju, B. Kristrom, J. Loomis, E.M. Moore, B. Ranneby, V.K. Smith

This Element on cost-benefit analysis provides a summary of recent theoretical and empirical developments and summarizes state-of-the-art stated-preference and revealed-preference valuation methods. The Element discusses how to assess small (or marginal) as well as large (or non-marginal) projects that have a significant impact on prices and/or other economic variables. It also discusses distortions like taxes, market power, and sticky prices. In addition, risk/uncertainty is considered. A novel feature is the elaboration on flexible evaluation rules for reasonably small projects. Conventional point-estimates of projects should be used with care, because they typically give biased results.

Written by two leading experts, this is a compact guide to the key tools and methods necessary to carry out cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The authors use modern economic tools to obtain general equilibrium cost-benefit rules that can be used to evaluate small projects, as well as large and even mega projects. Intertemporal issues like discounting, the shadow price of capital, and the treatment of risk are covered, and a state-of-the-art summary of available methods for the valuation of unpriced commodities is also included. In addition, the book provides detailed expositions of the marginal cost of public goods (MCPF), the marginal excess burden of taxes (MEB), and second-best evaluation rules, and shows how these concepts are interrelated. The importance of undertaking due diligence in evaluations is highlighted. This is an excellent toolkit for graduate students learning about the principles of CBA, and is a useful guide for government officials and policymakers.

This book presents research on a kind of water use conflicts that is becoming more and more common and important: How to best manage moving water in times of increasing demand for electricity as well as environmental services. How should decisions be made between water use for electricity generation or for environmental and recreational benefits? The authors develop a simple general equilibrium model of a small open economy which is used to derive a cost-benefit rule that can be used to assess projects that divert water from electricity generation to recreational and other uses (or vice versa). The cost-benefit rule is then applied to the specific case of a proposed change at a Swedish hydropower plant. The book provides a manual for the evaluation of river regulations which can easily be replicated in other studies.

Should more water be diverted to or from electricity generation? This timely question is addressed in this short volume. Two different approaches are introduced and compared: The first is a cost-benefit analysis, examining the case of re-regulating a Swedish hydropower plant in which water is diverted from electricity generation to the downstream dryway. The proposed scenario generates environmental and other benefits, but comes at a cost in terms of lost electricity. The second study introduces an approach very different from the one used in conventional cost-benefit analysis, and provides a set of measures designed so that most, if not all, affected parties will be better off. Thus, in contrast to a conventional cost-benefit analysis, which draws on hypothetical compensation measures, the new approach envisages actual compensation. Comparing two different theoretical frameworks on the basis of a real-world case, this study can be seen as a manual that can be used to evaluate reasonably small re-regulation of rivers.

This book shows, we believe, the breadth and the complexity of issues that econo mists now tackle in their analysis of the connections between the ecosystem and the economic system. The book offers contributions to such disparate issues as the value of preserving the wolf in Sweden and the proper distribution of permits in an effective global warming treaty. Because these questions remain at the fore front of important resource allocation problems that need to be confronted, it is only appropriate that they are represented in a book that intends to paint a picture, albeit certainly incomplete, of the vibrant and progressing state of environmental economics. The contributions cover five areas of environmental economics: policy instru ments, cost-benefit analysis, cost-efficiency, contingent valuation and experimental economics. Each area is worthy of a book by itself, but here we have made a point of focusing on problems that seem directly applicable to the pressing policy issues of today. Thus, the contributors address topics that are directly relevant to interna tional and regional policy making, as well as those that are linked to development of supporting information systems (e.g. resource accounting). In addition, the con tributions seek to provide high-level applications of measurement techniques as well as pertinent critiques of these methods. The next section provides a summary overview of the book."

This book shows, we believe, the breadth and the complexity of issues that econo mists now tackle in their analysis of the connections between the ecosystem and the economic system. The book offers contributions to such disparate issues as the value of preserving the wolf in Sweden and the proper distribution of permits in an effective global warming treaty. Because these questions remain at the fore front of important resource allocation problems that need to be confronted, it is only appropriate that they are represented in a book that intends to paint a picture, albeit certainly incomplete, of the vibrant and progressing state of environmental economics. The contributions cover five areas of environmental economics: policy instru ments, cost-benefit analysis, cost-efficiency, contingent valuation and experimental economics. Each area is worthy of a book by itself, but here we have made a point of focusing on problems that seem directly applicable to the pressing policy issues of today. Thus, the contributors address topics that are directly relevant to interna tional and regional policy making, as well as those that are linked to development of supporting information systems (e.g. resource accounting). In addition, the con tributions seek to provide high-level applications of measurement techniques as well as pertinent critiques of these methods. The next section provides a summary overview of the book."

This book presents research on a kind of water use conflicts that is becoming more and more common and important: How to best manage moving water in times of increasing demand for electricity as well as environmental services. How should decisions be made between water use for electricity generation or for environmental and recreational benefits? The authors develop a simple general equilibrium model of a small open economy which is used to derive a cost-benefit rule that can be used to assess projects that divert water from electricity generation to recreational and other uses (or vice versa). The cost-benefit rule is then applied to the specific case of a proposed change at a Swedish hydropower plant. The book provides a manual for the evaluation of river regulations which can easily be replicated in other studies.