Economics of the Environment: Theory and Policy

Description

The book interprets nature and the environment as a scarce resource. It offers a theoretical study of the allocation problem and describes different policy approaches to the environmental problem. The entire spectrum of the allocation issue is studied: the use of the environment in a static context, international and trade aspects of environmental allocation, regional dimensions, global environmental media, environmental use over time and under uncertainty. The book incorporates a variety of economic approaches, including neoclassical analysis, the public-goods approach, benefit-cost analysis, property-rights ideas, economic policy and public-finance reasoning, international trade theory, regional science, optimization theory, and risk analysis. The different aspectsof environmental allocation are studied in the context of a single model that is used through the book. Front Matter....Pages I-XIV Front Matter....Pages 1-1 The Problem....Pages 3-6 Using the Environment – An Allocation Problem....Pages 7-24 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 Production Theory and Transformation Space....Pages 27-41 Optimal Environmental Use....Pages 43-57 Environmental Quality as a Public Good....Pages 59-95 Property-Rights Approach to the Environmental Problem....Pages 97-104 Front Matter....Pages 105-105 Incidence of an Emission Tax....Pages 107-125 Policy Instruments....Pages 127-152 Policy Instruments and the Casuistics of Pollution....Pages 153-162 The Political Economy of Environmental Scarcity....Pages 163-170 Front Matter....Pages 171-171 Environmental Endowment, Competitiveness and Trade....Pages 173-194 Transfrontier Pollution....Pages 195-207 Global Environmental Media....Pages 209-227 Regional Aspects of Environmental Allocation....Pages 229-248 Front Matter....Pages 249-249 Long-Term Aspects of Environmental Quality....Pages 251-266 Economic Growth, Sustainability, and Environmental Quality....Pages 267-284 Risk and Environmental Allocation....Pages 285-297 Back Matter....Pages 299-333