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Sustainability Economics
The unprecedented advances in economic development witnessed over the past decades cannot continue if economic progress comes at the expense of the natural environment. The Sustainable Development Goals, agreed globally in 2015, define a vision of human development where economic, social and environmental domains interact to shape the prospects for future prosperity. This timely collection highlights the contribution of economics to the study of sustainable development. It brings together in one volume some of the most influential articles on the topic by economists over the past fifty years. Environmental sustainability, an inherently interdisciplinary topic, is analysed from the perspectives of applied microeconomics, environmental and resource economics, ecological economics, development economics and public economics. Together with an original introduction by the editors, this volume is indispensable for anyone interested or working in the field.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
More Information
The unprecedented advances in economic development witnessed over the past decades cannot continue if economic progress comes at the expense of the natural environment. The Sustainable Development Goals, agreed globally in 2015, define a vision of human development where economic, social and environmental domains interact to shape the prospects for future prosperity. This timely collection highlights the contribution of economics to the study of sustainable development. It brings together in one volume some of the most influential articles on the topic by economists over the past fifty years. Environmental sustainability, an inherently interdisciplinary topic, is analysed from the perspectives of applied microeconomics, environmental and resource economics, ecological economics, development economics and public economics. Together with an original introduction by the editors, this volume is indispensable for anyone interested or working in the field.
Critical Acclaim
‘The papers in this volume – many of them classics – portray economic activity, the state of the natural environment, and human wellbeing as being inextricably connected. As a collection, Sustainability Economics does more than establish where the field stands today. It also includes papers that mark the twists and turns that led researchers to this understanding. Atkinson and Fankhauser have curated an essential resource for anyone wanting to understand and to contribute to this literature.’
– Scott Barrett, Columbia University, US
– Scott Barrett, Columbia University, US
Contributors
43 articles, dating from 1966 to 2016
Contributors include: E.B. Barbier, P. Dasgupta, J.M. Hartwick, G. Heal, K-G. Mäler, R.S. Pindyck, J.D. Sachs, R.M. Solow, N. Stern, M.L. Weitzman
Contributors include: E.B. Barbier, P. Dasgupta, J.M. Hartwick, G. Heal, K-G. Mäler, R.S. Pindyck, J.D. Sachs, R.M. Solow, N. Stern, M.L. Weitzman
Contents
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction Giles Atkinson and Sam Fankhauser
PART I MOTIVATION
1. Kenneth E. Boulding (1966), ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’, in Henry Jarrett (ed.), Environmental Quality In a Growing Economy, Chapter One, Baltimore, MD, USA and London, UK: Johns Hopkins Press, 3–14
2. Herman E. Daly (1974), ’The Economics of the Steady State’, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 64 (2), May, 15–21
3. David Pearce (1976), ‘The Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Guide to Environmental Policy’, Kyklos, 29 (1), January, 97–111
4. Gro Harlem Brundtland (1985), ‘World Commission on Environment and Development – Statements of the Chairman’, Environmental Policy and Law, 14 (1), March, 26–30
5. Mick Common and Charles Perrings (1992), ‘Towards an Ecological Economics of Sustainability’, Ecological Economics, 6 (1), July, 7–34
6. Robert U. Ayres (2008), ‘Sustainability Economics: Where Do We Stand?’, Ecological Economics, 67 (2), September, 281–310
PART II ECONOMIC DEFINITIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY
7. Partha Dasgupta and Geoffrey Heal (1974), ‘The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources’, Review of Economic Studies: Symposium on the Economics of Exhaustible Resources, 41 (5), December, 3–28
8. R. M. Solow (1974), ‘Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources’, Review of Economic Studies: Symposium on the Economics of Exhaustible Resources, 41 (5), December, 29–45
9. John M. Hartwick (1977), ‘Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources’, American Economic Review, 67 (5), December, 972–74
10. Robert M. Solow (1986), ‘On the Intergenerational Allocation of Natural Resources’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics: Growth and Distribution: Intergenerational Problems, 88 (1), March, 141–49
11. John Pezzey (1992), ‘Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide’, Environmental Values, 1 (4), Winter, 321–62
12. Partha Dasgupta and Karl-Göran Mäler (2000), ‘Net National Product, Wealth, and Social Well-Being’, Environment and Development Economics, 5 (1), February, 69–93
13. Kirk Hamilton and John M. Hartwick (2005), ‘Investing Exhaustible Resource Rents and the Path of Consumption’, Canadian Journal of Economics, 38 (2), May, 615–21
14. Kirk Hamilton and Cees Withagen (2007), ‘Savings Growth and the Path of Utility’, Canadian Journal of Economics, 40 (2), May, 703–13
PART III MEASURES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
A. Measures of Sustainability
15. Martin L. Weitzman (1976), ‘On the Welfare Significance of National Product in a Dynamic Economy’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90 (1), February, 156–62
16. John M. Hartwick (1990), ‘Natural Resources, National Accounting and Economic Depreciation’, Journal of Public Economics, 43 (3), December, 291–304
17. David W. Pearce and Giles D. Atkinson (1993), ‘Capital Theory and the Measurement of Sustainable Development: An Indicator of “Weak” Sustainability‘, Ecological Economics, 8 (2), October, 103–8
18. Kirk Hamilton and Michael Clemens (1999), ‘Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries’, World Bank Economic Review, 13 (2), May, 333–56
19. Kenneth J. Arrow, Partha Dasgupta, Lawrence H. Goulder, Kevin J. Mumford and Kirsten Oleson (2012), ‘Sustainability and the Measurement of Wealth’, Environment and Development Economics, 17 (3), June, 317–53
20. Elena G. Irwin, Sathya Gopalakrishnan and Alan Randall (2016), ‘Welfare, Wealth, and Sustainability’, Annual Review of Resource Economics, 8, October, 77–98
B. Natural Capital
21. Brian Walker, Leonie Pearson, Michael Harris, Karl-Göran Mäler, Chuan-Zhong Li, Reinette Biggs and Tim Baynes (2010), ‘Incorporating Resilience in the Assessment of Inclusive Wealth: An Example from South East Australia’, Environmental and Resource Economics, 45 (2), February, 183–202
22. James Boyd and Spencer Banzhaf (2007), ‘What Are Ecosystem Services? The Need for Standardized Environmental Accounting Units’, Ecological Economics, 63 (2–3), August, 616–26
23. Ian J. Bateman, Georgina M. Mace, Carlo Fezzi, Giles Atkinson and Kerry Turner (2011), ‘Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Service Assessments’, Environmental and Resource Economics, 48 (2), February, 177–218
24. Brendan Fisher, R. Kerry Turner and Paul Morling (2009), ‘Defining and Classifying Ecosystem Services for Decision Making’, Ecological Economics, 68 (3), January, 643–53
25. Eli P. Fenichel and Joshua K. Abbott (2014), ‘Natural Capital: From Metaphor to Measurement’, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 1 (1–2), Spring–Summer, 1–27
26. Mathis Wackernagel, Larry Onisto, Patricia Bello, Alejandro Callejas Linares, Ina Susana López Falfán, Jesus Méndez García, Ana Isabel Suárez Guerrero and Ma. Guadalupe Suárez Guerrero (1999), ‘National Natural Capital Accounting with the Ecological Footprint Concept’, Ecological Economics, 29 (3), June, 375–90
PART IV SUSTAINABILITY AND PROJECT APPRAISAL
A. Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis
27. E. B. Barbier, A. Markandya and D. W. Pearce (1990), ‘Environmental Sustainability and Cost-Benefit Analysis’, Environment and Planning A, 22 (9), September, 1259–66
28. Giles Atkinson and Susana Mourato (2008), ‘Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 33, November, 317–44
29. Richard T. Carson (2012), ‘Contingent Valuation: A Practical Alternative when Prices Aren’t Available’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26 (4), Fall, 27–42
B. Intergenerational Equity and Discounting
30. Anil Markandya and David W. Pearce (1991), ‘Development, the Environment, and the Social Rate of Discount’, World Bank Research Observer, 6 (2), July, 137–52
31. Partha Dasgupta (2008), ‘Discounting Climate Change’, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 37 (2–3), December, 141–69
32. Nicholas Stern (2014), ‘Ethics, Equity and the Economics of Climate Change – Paper 2: Economics and Politics’, Economics and Philosophy, 30 (3), November, 445–501
C. Risk and Uncertainty
33. Robert S. Pindyck (2007), ‘Uncertainty in Environmental Economics’, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1 (1), Winter, 45–65
34. Martin L. Weitzman (2009), ‘On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change’, Review of Economics and Statistics, XCI (1), February, 1–19
35. Geoffrey Heal and Antony Millner (2014), ‘Reflections: Uncertainty and Decision Making in Climate Change Economics’, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 8 (1), Winter, 120–37
PART V SUSTAINABILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
A. Environmental Drivers of Growth
36. John Luke Gallup, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew D. Mellinger (1999), ‘Geography and Economic Development’, International Regional Science Review, 22 (2), August, 179–223, 225–232
37. Melissa Dell, Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken (2012), ‘Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century’, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 4 (3), July, 66–95
38. Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew M. Warner (2001), ‘The Curse of Natural Resources’, European Economic Review, 45 (4–6), May, 827–38
39. Christa N. Brunnschweiler and Erwin H. Bulte (2008), ‘The Resource Curse Revisited and Revised: A Tale of Paradoxes and Red Herrings’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 55 (3), May, 248–64
B. Growth and Environmental Quality
40. David I. Stern (2004), ‘The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve’, World Development, 32 (8), August, 1419–39
41. Joan Martínez-Alier, Unai Pascual, Franck-Dominique Vivien and Edwin Zaccai (2010), ‘Sustainable De-Growth: Mapping the Context, Criticisms and Future Prospects of an Emergent Paradigm’, Ecological Economics, 69 (9), July, 1741–47
42. Alex Bowen and Samuel Fankhauser (2011), ‘The Green Growth Narrative: Paradigm Shift or Just Spin?’, Global Environmental Change, 21 (4), October, 1157–59
43. Michael E. Porter and Claas van der Linde (1995), ‘Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9 (4), Fall, 97–118
Index
Acknowledgements
Introduction Giles Atkinson and Sam Fankhauser
PART I MOTIVATION
1. Kenneth E. Boulding (1966), ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’, in Henry Jarrett (ed.), Environmental Quality In a Growing Economy, Chapter One, Baltimore, MD, USA and London, UK: Johns Hopkins Press, 3–14
2. Herman E. Daly (1974), ’The Economics of the Steady State’, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 64 (2), May, 15–21
3. David Pearce (1976), ‘The Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis as a Guide to Environmental Policy’, Kyklos, 29 (1), January, 97–111
4. Gro Harlem Brundtland (1985), ‘World Commission on Environment and Development – Statements of the Chairman’, Environmental Policy and Law, 14 (1), March, 26–30
5. Mick Common and Charles Perrings (1992), ‘Towards an Ecological Economics of Sustainability’, Ecological Economics, 6 (1), July, 7–34
6. Robert U. Ayres (2008), ‘Sustainability Economics: Where Do We Stand?’, Ecological Economics, 67 (2), September, 281–310
PART II ECONOMIC DEFINITIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY
7. Partha Dasgupta and Geoffrey Heal (1974), ‘The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources’, Review of Economic Studies: Symposium on the Economics of Exhaustible Resources, 41 (5), December, 3–28
8. R. M. Solow (1974), ‘Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources’, Review of Economic Studies: Symposium on the Economics of Exhaustible Resources, 41 (5), December, 29–45
9. John M. Hartwick (1977), ‘Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources’, American Economic Review, 67 (5), December, 972–74
10. Robert M. Solow (1986), ‘On the Intergenerational Allocation of Natural Resources’, Scandinavian Journal of Economics: Growth and Distribution: Intergenerational Problems, 88 (1), March, 141–49
11. John Pezzey (1992), ‘Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Guide’, Environmental Values, 1 (4), Winter, 321–62
12. Partha Dasgupta and Karl-Göran Mäler (2000), ‘Net National Product, Wealth, and Social Well-Being’, Environment and Development Economics, 5 (1), February, 69–93
13. Kirk Hamilton and John M. Hartwick (2005), ‘Investing Exhaustible Resource Rents and the Path of Consumption’, Canadian Journal of Economics, 38 (2), May, 615–21
14. Kirk Hamilton and Cees Withagen (2007), ‘Savings Growth and the Path of Utility’, Canadian Journal of Economics, 40 (2), May, 703–13
PART III MEASURES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
A. Measures of Sustainability
15. Martin L. Weitzman (1976), ‘On the Welfare Significance of National Product in a Dynamic Economy’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90 (1), February, 156–62
16. John M. Hartwick (1990), ‘Natural Resources, National Accounting and Economic Depreciation’, Journal of Public Economics, 43 (3), December, 291–304
17. David W. Pearce and Giles D. Atkinson (1993), ‘Capital Theory and the Measurement of Sustainable Development: An Indicator of “Weak” Sustainability‘, Ecological Economics, 8 (2), October, 103–8
18. Kirk Hamilton and Michael Clemens (1999), ‘Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries’, World Bank Economic Review, 13 (2), May, 333–56
19. Kenneth J. Arrow, Partha Dasgupta, Lawrence H. Goulder, Kevin J. Mumford and Kirsten Oleson (2012), ‘Sustainability and the Measurement of Wealth’, Environment and Development Economics, 17 (3), June, 317–53
20. Elena G. Irwin, Sathya Gopalakrishnan and Alan Randall (2016), ‘Welfare, Wealth, and Sustainability’, Annual Review of Resource Economics, 8, October, 77–98
B. Natural Capital
21. Brian Walker, Leonie Pearson, Michael Harris, Karl-Göran Mäler, Chuan-Zhong Li, Reinette Biggs and Tim Baynes (2010), ‘Incorporating Resilience in the Assessment of Inclusive Wealth: An Example from South East Australia’, Environmental and Resource Economics, 45 (2), February, 183–202
22. James Boyd and Spencer Banzhaf (2007), ‘What Are Ecosystem Services? The Need for Standardized Environmental Accounting Units’, Ecological Economics, 63 (2–3), August, 616–26
23. Ian J. Bateman, Georgina M. Mace, Carlo Fezzi, Giles Atkinson and Kerry Turner (2011), ‘Economic Analysis for Ecosystem Service Assessments’, Environmental and Resource Economics, 48 (2), February, 177–218
24. Brendan Fisher, R. Kerry Turner and Paul Morling (2009), ‘Defining and Classifying Ecosystem Services for Decision Making’, Ecological Economics, 68 (3), January, 643–53
25. Eli P. Fenichel and Joshua K. Abbott (2014), ‘Natural Capital: From Metaphor to Measurement’, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 1 (1–2), Spring–Summer, 1–27
26. Mathis Wackernagel, Larry Onisto, Patricia Bello, Alejandro Callejas Linares, Ina Susana López Falfán, Jesus Méndez García, Ana Isabel Suárez Guerrero and Ma. Guadalupe Suárez Guerrero (1999), ‘National Natural Capital Accounting with the Ecological Footprint Concept’, Ecological Economics, 29 (3), June, 375–90
PART IV SUSTAINABILITY AND PROJECT APPRAISAL
A. Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis
27. E. B. Barbier, A. Markandya and D. W. Pearce (1990), ‘Environmental Sustainability and Cost-Benefit Analysis’, Environment and Planning A, 22 (9), September, 1259–66
28. Giles Atkinson and Susana Mourato (2008), ‘Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 33, November, 317–44
29. Richard T. Carson (2012), ‘Contingent Valuation: A Practical Alternative when Prices Aren’t Available’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26 (4), Fall, 27–42
B. Intergenerational Equity and Discounting
30. Anil Markandya and David W. Pearce (1991), ‘Development, the Environment, and the Social Rate of Discount’, World Bank Research Observer, 6 (2), July, 137–52
31. Partha Dasgupta (2008), ‘Discounting Climate Change’, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 37 (2–3), December, 141–69
32. Nicholas Stern (2014), ‘Ethics, Equity and the Economics of Climate Change – Paper 2: Economics and Politics’, Economics and Philosophy, 30 (3), November, 445–501
C. Risk and Uncertainty
33. Robert S. Pindyck (2007), ‘Uncertainty in Environmental Economics’, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1 (1), Winter, 45–65
34. Martin L. Weitzman (2009), ‘On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change’, Review of Economics and Statistics, XCI (1), February, 1–19
35. Geoffrey Heal and Antony Millner (2014), ‘Reflections: Uncertainty and Decision Making in Climate Change Economics’, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 8 (1), Winter, 120–37
PART V SUSTAINABILITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
A. Environmental Drivers of Growth
36. John Luke Gallup, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew D. Mellinger (1999), ‘Geography and Economic Development’, International Regional Science Review, 22 (2), August, 179–223, 225–232
37. Melissa Dell, Benjamin F. Jones and Benjamin A. Olken (2012), ‘Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century’, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 4 (3), July, 66–95
38. Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew M. Warner (2001), ‘The Curse of Natural Resources’, European Economic Review, 45 (4–6), May, 827–38
39. Christa N. Brunnschweiler and Erwin H. Bulte (2008), ‘The Resource Curse Revisited and Revised: A Tale of Paradoxes and Red Herrings’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 55 (3), May, 248–64
B. Growth and Environmental Quality
40. David I. Stern (2004), ‘The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve’, World Development, 32 (8), August, 1419–39
41. Joan Martínez-Alier, Unai Pascual, Franck-Dominique Vivien and Edwin Zaccai (2010), ‘Sustainable De-Growth: Mapping the Context, Criticisms and Future Prospects of an Emergent Paradigm’, Ecological Economics, 69 (9), July, 1741–47
42. Alex Bowen and Samuel Fankhauser (2011), ‘The Green Growth Narrative: Paradigm Shift or Just Spin?’, Global Environmental Change, 21 (4), October, 1157–59
43. Michael E. Porter and Claas van der Linde (1995), ‘Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9 (4), Fall, 97–118
Index
