environmental economics Articles
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Environmental & Economic
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a fundamental parameter in assessing air quality. The European Environment Agency (EEA) reported in 2018 that air pollution was the cause of almost 50,000 premature deaths in Europe per year. This finding pre-empted the head of the EEA agency stating "Air pollution is an invisible killer and we need to step up our efforts to address the causes”. ...
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An introductory note on the environmental economics of the circular economy
This paper provides an introduction to some of the fundamental principles and approaches in environmental economics which are of significance to achieving an integrated sustainability science. The concept of a circular economy, introduced by the late David Pearce in 1990, addresses the interlinkages of the four economic functions of the environment. The environment not only provides amenity ...
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Turning economics inside out
This article sets out a view of the purposes and approaches of 'green economics'. It looks particularly at the 'boundary' conventionally drawn around economics, and at the 'inputs' and 'externalities' which cross that boundary, and proposes that these should be the primary focus for work on green economics, incorporating both ecological and social aspects. The article includes a brief critique of ...
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Whither ecological economics?
This paper examines the nature of ecological economics, arguing that it comprises two aspects, the qualitative framework within which it operates and the quantitative techniques which it uses to measure sustainability, evaluate policies and assist decision-making. The former is distinct to ecological economics, whereas the latter is largely shared with environmental economics. Although these have ...
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Chapter 1: Issues of global environmental economics
The focus of this first chapter is to address and analyse some specific and unifying issues at the interface of energy use and environmental management from a global perspective. These issues will be examined at various instances throughout the book. We start from the fact that carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere affects the radiation balance of the Earth, and that increasing CO2 ...
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Reconciling different approaches to environmental management
Environmental management is often regarded as the domain of the natural scientist with decision criteria developed within strict methodological boundaries. The argument is put forward that economic criteria have tried to emulate scientific methodology to the exclusion of important socio-economic factors. Concern over the monetary valuation of the environment has lead to calls for ...
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Supporting the development of environmentally sustainable technologies and products: the role of innovation, informal cooperation and governmental agency
Sustainable, economic, environmental and social development will require substantial improvements in the efficiency of present environmental and resource use, which in turn will increase the focus on a broader set of environmental, economic and social linkages. These are the result of dynamic interactions, in which changes in one set of factors will impact on others, and vice versa. This paper ...
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Inducing pro–environmental behaviour: moral suasion, reciprocal altruism and the Man–in–the–Middle
Individuals make consumption choices relating to living styles, travelling or in preferring products or services over others. The median individual's willingness to align with a cooperative group and to bear the costs that would accrue distant benefits, and having a sizable number of such willing individuals representing the median, would determine eventual environmental outcomes. This paper ...
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Recovering and extending classical and Marshallian foundations for post-Keynesian environmental economics
Post-Keynesians emphasise the critical roles of institutional structures and production in economic life. An assumption of the plasticity of production has led to the neglect of the underlying physical and ecological requirements of production and the dependence of human economies on nature's resources and production. The task of developing an environmental economics cannot be separated from the ...
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The costs of women's unequal pay and opportunity: transforming the unbalanced structure of our economy to meet the challenges of today: climate change, poverty and the twin crises of the economy and economics
In the clamour to be green, it is often forgotten that women are more likely to be poor and earn less than men in all countries of the world. They have much less political, economic and institutional representation and are less present on the boards of the world's companies. If green economics means social and environmental justice, then gender must be included in all claims to be 'green'. This ...
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3 Questions: Michael Greenstone on the Experimental Method in Environmental Economics
Original story at MIT News MIT economist makes the case for new quasi-experiments as a way of studying environmental issues. How can scholars get traction on environmental problems, particularly those relating to pollution? In an essay appearing in this week’s issue of the journal Science, MIT economist Michael Greenstone, along with co-authors Francesca Dominici and Cass Sunstein of ...
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Editorial: progress in Green Economics: ontology, concepts and philosophy. Civilisation and the lost factor of reality in social and environmental justice
The inaugural publication of the International Journal of Green Economics constructed formal foundations for the establishment of a new school of thought and an attempt to explore and capture current developments and thinking in Green Economics. The current issue introduces the next step in the development of green economics with a philosophical exploration of our focus, along with investigating ...
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Is economic growth sustainable? Environmental quality of Indian States after 1991
This study attempts to investigate the relationship between Environmental Quality (EQ) and per capita NSDP (i.e., Environmental Kuznets Curve, EKC) of 14 major Indian States, in the light of their high economic growth in the post-liberalisation period. The analysis involves first ranking the States on the basis of their EQ, and then checking the relationship. The results indicate that the ...
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Only pluralism in economics research and education is compatible with a democratic society
Do we need a Green economics different from mainstream neoclassical economics? The position taken here is that exclusive reliance on neoclassical economics (with its extension to environmental economics) will not be enough in guiding us towards a sustainable society. Neoclassical economics is specific not only in scientific but also in ideological terms and the combined conceptual and ideological ...
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Post-Keynesian economics and sustainable development
This paper looks at the relationship between sustainable development and economics. Neoclassical economics with its current methodological approach is not well suited to understand or analyse the problem of sustainable development. Post-Keynesian economics – with its focus on macro and policy outcomes, the role of institutions, uncertainty, historical time, and its criticism of gross substitution ...
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CALIFORNIA WATER 2030: An Efficient Future
What could California’s water situation look like in the year 2030—twenty-five years from now? The answer is, almost anything: from shortage and political conflict to sufficiency and cooperation. California water planners regularly prepare projections of supply and demand as part of the California Water Plan process, but these projections have never included a vision of a truly water-efficient ...
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Why have post-Keynesians had (relatively) little to say on the economics of the environment?
This paper examines the reasons for the relative lack of post-Keynesian work on the economics of the environment. The paper draws on new questionnaire and interview data collected by the author from leading contemporary post-Keynesians. The data suggest that there are many reasons why post-Keynesians have had little to say on the environment. The main reasons are: post-Keynesians have adopted a ...
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The iron fist vs. the invisible hand: interventionism and libertarianism in environmental economic discourses
Drawing from a broad range of sources, we define and discuss the two primary ways of contemplating issues related to environmental economics, namely, interventionism and libertarianism. We then interpret a cellular automaton as a model that allows for either approach, as well as anarchy, and show that interventionism exponentially reduces the number of possibilities while libertarianism, even ...
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“It Pays to be Green” – A Premature Conclusion?
It has been claimed that good environmental performance can improve firms’ economic performance. However, because of e.g. data limitations, the methods applied in most previous quantitative empirical studies on effects of environmental performance on economic performance of firms suffer from several shortcomings. We discuss these shortcomings and conclude that previously applied methods are ...
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Conceptual frameworks and visual interpretations of sustainability
This article presents a dual (conceptual and visual) discussion of sustainability and sustainable development, arguing for the two perspectives being complementary. The conceptual treatment includes an analysis of the concepts using a systemic framework highlighting the plurality of interpretations arising from the specification of the system, valuation function, and theoretical perspective ...
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