Topics in Environmental Economics

Book excerpt: This book shows, we believe, the breadth and the complexity of issues that econo mists now tackle in their analysis of the connections between the ecosystem and the economic system. The book offers contributions to such disparate issues as the value of preserving the wolf in Sweden and the proper distribution of permits in an effective global warming treaty. Because these questions remain at the fore front of important resource allocation problems that need to be confronted, it is only appropriate that they are represented in a book that intends to paint a picture, albeit certainly incomplete, of the vibrant and progressing state of environmental economics. The contributions cover five areas of environmental economics: policy instru ments, cost-benefit analysis, cost-efficiency, contingent valuation and experimental economics. Each area is worthy of a book by itself, but here we have made a point of focusing on problems that seem directly applicable to the pressing policy issues of today. Thus, the contributors address topics that are directly relevant to interna tional and regional policy making, as well as those that are linked to development of supporting information systems (e.g. resource accounting). In addition, the con tributions seek to provide high-level applications of measurement techniques as well as pertinent critiques of these methods. The next section provides a summary overview of the book.