Suchergebnisse

This book, based on lectures on natural and environmental resource economics, offers a nontechnical exposition of the modern theory of sustainability in the presence of resource scarcity. It applies an alternative take on environmental economics, focusing on the economics of the natural environment, including development, computation, and potential empirical importance of the concept of option value, as opposed to the standard treatment of the economics of pollution control. The approach throughout is primarily conceptual and theoretical, though empirical estimation and results are sometimes noted. Mathematics, ranging from elementary calculus to more formal dynamic optimization, is used, especially in the early chapters on the optimal management of exhaustible and renewable resources, but results are always given an economic interpretation. Diagrams and numerical examples are also used extensively. The first chapter introduces the classical economists as the first resource economists, in their discussion of the implications of a limited natural resource base (agricultural land) for the evolution of the wider economy. A later chapter returns to the same concerns, along with others stimulated by the energy and environmental "crises" of the 1970s and beyond. One section considers alternative measures of resource scarcity and empirical findings on their behavior over time. Another introduces the modern concept of sustainability with an intuitive development of the analytics. A chapter on the dynamics of environmental management motivates the concept of option value, shows how to compute it, then demonstrates its importance in an illustrative empirical example. The closing chapter, on climate change, first projects future changes and potential catastrophic impacts, then discusses the policy relevance of both option value and discounting for the very long run. This book is intended for resource and environmental economists and can be read by interested graduate and advanced undergraduate students in the field as well.

In a series of studies employing a variety of approaches, we have found that the potential impact of climate change on US agriculture is likely negative. Deschênes and Greenstone (2007) report dramatically different results based on regressions of agricultural profits and yields on weather variables. The divergence is explained by (1) missing and incorrect weather and climate data in their study; (2) their use of older climate change projections rather than the more recent and less optimistic projections from the Fourth Assessment Report; and (3) difficulties in their profit measure due to the confounding effects of storage.

Issues in the debate over "privatization" of public lands in the US are evaluated, focusing on the key contention that private stewardship would promote more efficient allocation of national resources. The failure of private ownership & free markets to achieve all public policy objectives involved (eg, efficiency in satisfying demand for goods & services at the lowest incremental prices) is reviewed along with the historical rationales for maintaining public ownership; specifically, certain categories of public goods, indivisibility of some inputs (eg, wildlife preservation), & the necessity of political choice require combinations of public & private ownership. Since inefficiencies are viewed as persisting under both forms, careful monitoring of economic activity in both sectors is recommended; mechanisms for securing public goods if large-scale transfers of public lands occur are outlined. 11 References. Modified HA.