For the past 25 years, governmental decision-makers have employed the economic approach of benefit-cost analysis for resource allocation decisions. Environmental Economics describes, in a non-technical, readily understandable way, why the actual practice of benefit-cost analysis in environmental settings is heavily biased against the environment. The book provides environmentalists with the tools necessary to show policy-makers that pursuing many policies with apparent costs greater than benefits are, in fact, welfare enhancing.

For the past 25 years, governmental decision-makers have employed the economic approach of benefit-cost analysis for resource allocation decisions. Environmental Economics describes, in a non-technical, readily understandable way, why the actual practice of benefit-cost analysis in environmental settings is heavily biased against the environment. The book provides environmentalists with the tools necessary to show policy-makers that pursuing many policies with apparent costs greater than benefits are, in fact, welfare enhancing.

Rigorous, yet written in a way that facilitates understanding of complex material, Environmental Economics: An Integrated Approach provides practical and working knowledge of how environmental policy analysis is developed. This is a true textbook, detailing the tools required to conduct that analysis and also discusses weaknesses in the existing methods, underlining areas for future improvement. This approach allows readers to get a sense of what is known and what is not known about environmental economics. The book discusses why we have environmental problems and how we would optimally react if we had perfect information about environmental benefits and costs. It then describes methods in use-and their flaws-to acquire the information necessary to enact environmental policy. The book starts with a categorization of goods types, concluding that environmental problems stem from non-excludable goods that are either rivalrous or non-rivalrous. The author introduces the Coase Theorem in the first chapter, then details how households and firms would behave when facing a zero price on pollution versus a price on pollution set equal to presumed known marginal damages. He connects the economic system with the environmental system by aggregating up from individual decisions to the aggregate market system and the aggregate environmental quality. But, of course, the information available is rarely perfect. Clarifying the information difficulties faced by households, firms, and policy makers, the author recognizes that there is both a knowledge gap and a communication gap. He then covers the methods policy makers employ in an attempt to gain sufficient insight into marginal benefits and marginal costs to properly set a marginal damage tax, properly limit emission rights, or properly provide public goods. The book then examines the nature of these methods and their likely bias, before concluding that surviving the next 50 to 100 years will lead to a w

Rigorous, yet written in a way that facilitates understanding of complex material, Environmental Economics: An Integrated Approach provides practical and working knowledge of how environmental policy analysis is developed. This is a true textbook, detailing the tools required to conduct that analysis and also discusses weaknesses in the existing methods, underlining areas for future improvement. This approach allows readers to get a sense of what is known and what is not known about environmental economics. The book discusses why we have environmental problems and how we would optimally react if we had perfect information about environmental benefits and costs. It then describes methods in use-and their flaws-to acquire the information necessary to enact environmental policy. The book starts with a categorization of goods types, concluding that environmental problems stem from non-excludable goods that are either rivalrous or non-rivalrous. The author introduces the Coase Theorem in the first chapter, then details how households and firms would behave when facing a zero price on pollution versus a price on pollution set equal to presumed known marginal damages. He connects the economic system with the environmental system by aggregating up from individual decisions to the aggregate market system and the aggregate environmental quality. But, of course, the information available is rarely perfect. Clarifying the information difficulties faced by households, firms, and policy makers, the author recognizes that there is both a knowledge gap and a communication gap. He then covers the methods policy makers employ in an attempt to gain sufficient insight into marginal benefits and marginal costs to properly set a marginal damage tax, properly limit emission rights, or properly provide public goods. The book then examines the nature of these methods and their likely bias, before concluding that surviving the next 50 to 100 years will lead to a w

An introduction to the economics of the environment, it provides a coherent chain of theoretical and empirical reasoning on environmental problems and measures to control them and reduce their severity. It equips the reader with the basic tools needed to assess the economic damage caused by materials discharged to air, water, and other environmental media.

The all-new Chapter 2 in this edition makes the text more accessible by applying the basic elements of microeconomics analysis to environmental issues: supply and demand for ordinary and environmental goods, emphasizing both similarities and differences; also market failure, public goods, property rights, the "free rider" problem, and externalities. A section on hazardous substances has been added along with a discussion of the latest environmental alternative reforms. The book now ends with a new chapter on the prospects for environmental economics.

In Part I, the authors establish a theoretical base for the material in subsequent sections. They review key elements of microeconomic theory and extend them to include polluting discharges. Principles of welfare economics, of market failure from externalities, and of benefit-cost analysis receive careful exposition. They are then applied to alternative government programs such as effluent fees, subsidies, and regulation designed to optimize resource allocation in the presence of externalities.

Part II draws together technical data on water, air, and solid-waste discharges. Sources, amounts, damages, abatement techniques, and benefit-cost calculations are pollutants. The final section deals with pollution-control programs now in effect, proposals for new policies, and future role of environmental economics.