Environment and Development: An Economic Approach

ISBN-13: 9789401067676 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 175 str.

Jan Bojo; Karl-Goran Maler; Lena Unemo

Opis

This book is a thoroughly revised text based on a report commissioned by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). The financial grant from SIDA which made the work possible is hereby gratefully acknowledged. We gratefully accepted the offer from Kluwer Academic Publishers to revise the text. Hopefully, the text can be of interest to decision-makers, development programme personnel, teachers and the general public interested in how economics can contribute to better environmental decision-making. There are already many books on the market about environmental economics, some of them very good. What is special about this one? We do not claim to have obtained new results, but we have our own way of presenting the subject matter. In particular, we are of the opinion that policy failures are often overlooked as an obstacle to efficient environmental management. Although the main emphasis in this book is on project level analysis, it is essential that such analyses be linked to an understanding of the (dis)incentives for environmental improvements that general economic and particular environmental policies provide. Another essential feature of the book, although this is not unique, is the links provided between theory and empirical illustrations. We hope that this will illustrate to our readers the practical usefulness, but also the difficulties, of applying economics to environmental problems. In principle, this book can be read by anyone interested in the subject matter, without any formal education in economics. However, some background in microeconomic theory makes the reading easier.

Spis treści

1. Summary.- 2. Introduction.- 2.1 Background.- 2.2 Sustainable Development.- 2.3 Disposition and Delimitations.- 3. Distortions in the Economic System and the Need for Economic Analysis.- 3.1 The “Bench-mark” Economy.- 3.2 Market Failures.- 3.2.1 Externalities.- 3.2.2 Risk Markets.- 3.2.3 Future Markets.- 3.2.4 Income Distribution.- 3.3 Policy Failures.- 3.3.1 International Trade Policy.- 3.3.2 Property Rights Definition and Enforcement.- 3.3.3 Population Policy.- 3.3.4 Price Policy.- 3.3.5 Tax Policy.- 3.3.6 Political Elites and Bureaucratic Suboptimization.- 3.3.7 Public Investment.- 3.3.8 Environmental Information.- 3.4 Summary.- 4. General Equilibrium Analysis and National Accounting.- 4.1 General Equilibrium Analysis.- 4.2 National Income Accounting and Environmental Resources.- 4.3 Aggregate Welfare Measures.- 4.4 Natural Resource Accounting and Computable General Equilibrium Models.- 5. Economic Analysis of Environmental Consequences.- 5.1 Major Steps in CBA.- 5.1.1 Planning Perspectives and Evaluation Criteria.- 5.1.2 Income Distribution.- 5.1.3 Discounting.- 5.1.4 Risk and Uncertainty.- 5.2 Valuation Approaches.- 5.2.1 Valuation Using Conventional Markets.- 5.2.1.1 Valuation of Changes in Production.- 5.2.1.2 Replacement Cost.- 5.2.1.3 Preventive Expenditure.- 5.2.1.4 Valuation of Human Capital.- 5.2.2 Valuation Using Implicit Markets.- 5.2.2.1 The Travel Cost Approach.- 5.2.2.2 Land and Property Value Approach.- 5.2.3 Valuation Using Artificial Markets.- 5.3 Complementary and Other Methods.- 5.4 Criticism against CBA.- 6. Case Studies.- 6.1 Agricultural Projects.- 6.1.1 Soil and Water Conservation — Farm Improvement and Soil Conservation in Lesotho.- 6.1.2 Soil and Water Conservation — Upland Agricultural Project in Korea.- 6.1.3 Range Management — The Eppalock Catchment in Australia.- 6.1.4 Agroforestry — An Afforestation Programme in Nigeria.- 6.2 Forestry Project — Nepal Hill Forest Development Project.- 6.3 Integrated Environmental Project — Environmental Protection in the Philippines.- 6.4 Recreation and Forestry — Preservation of Mountain Forests — The Vålå Valley in Sweden.- 6.5 Air Pollution.- 6.5.1 Air Pollution — The South Coast Air Basin Experiment in California.- 6.5.2 Valuation of Morbidity Reduction due to Pollution Abatement: Direct vs. Indirect Measurement.- 6.5.3 Air Pollution and Corrosion Damage.- 6.6 Water Pollution — Water Quality Management in Thailand.- 6.7 Environmental Degradation and Policy Failures.- 6.7.1 Deforestation in the Amazon: Regional Development Policies.- 6.7.2 Deforestation in the Amazon: Fiscal and Legal Provisions.