Economics, Ethics, and Environmental Policy Contested Choices

by Bromley, Daniel W.; Paavola, Jouni

• ISBN13: 9780631229681
• ISBN10: 063122968X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-05-14
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Economics, Ethics, and Environmental Policy: Contested Choices offers a comprehensive analysis of the ethical problems associated with basing environmental policy on economic analysis, and ways to overcome these problems. The volume has practical relevance because policy recommendations and choices based on economic analysis are often contested by critics. This book takes their criticism seriously. It seeks to clarify and defend the ethical foundations of environmental economics and examines what lessons environmental economics should draw from the criticism. As a result, the volume improves our understanding of the ethical foundations and implications of economic analysis of environmental problems and policy. The contribution is all the more important because the problem has not been extensively studied.

Author Biography

Daniel W. Bromley is Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has written and edited numerous books including Sustaining Development (1999), The Handbook of Environmental Economics (1995), Making the Commons Work (1992), Environment and Economy (1991), and Economic Interests and Institutions (1989). He is also the editor of the journal Land Economics, the oldest and most distinguished international journal in environmental and natural resources economics.

Jouni Paavola is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) at the University of East Anglia and an Associate Fellow at the Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics, and Society (OCEES), Mansfield College, Oxford, UK. He has authored a number of publications on economics, ethics, and history of environmental policy.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii
List of Tables	viii
List of Contributors	ix
Preface and Acknowledgments	xi
Part I Introduction	1	(14)
Contested Choices	3	(12)
Jouni Paavola
Daniel W. Bromley
Part II Economics, Ethics, and Policy Choices	15	(70)
Are Choices Tradeoffs?	17	(18)
Alan Holland
The Ignorance Argument: What Must We Know to be Fair to the Future?	35	(18)
Bryan Norton
Benefit-Cost Considerations Should be Decisive When There is Nothing More Important at Stake	53	(16)
Alan Randall
Environmental Policy as a Process of Reasonable Valuing	69	(16)
Juha Hiedanpaa
Daniel W. Bromley
Part III Ethical Concerns and Policy Goals	85	(46)
Rethinking the Choice and Performance of Environmental Policies	87	(16)
Jouni Paavola
What Should We Do with Inconsistent, Nonwelfaristic, and Undeveloped Preferences?	103	(17)
Olof Johansson-Stenman
Awkward Choices: Economics and Nature Conservation	120	(11)
Nick Hanley
Jason F. Shogren
Part IV Ethical Dimensions of Policy Consequences	131	(72)
All Environmental Policy Instruments Require a Moral Choice as to Whose Interests Count	133	(15)
A. Allan Schmid
Efficient or Fair: Ethical Paradoxes in Environmental Policy	148	(16)
Arild Vatn
Trading with the Enemy? Examining North-South Perspectives in the Climate Change Debate	164	(17)
Bhaskar Vira
Social Costs and Sustainability	181	(22)
Martin O' Connor
Part V Ethics in Action: Empirical Analyses	203	(56)
Empirical Signs of Ethical Concern in Economic Valuation of the Environment	205	(17)
Clive L. Spash
Motivating Existence Values: The Many and Varied Sources of the Started WTP for Endangered Species	222	(17)
Andreas Kontoleon
Timothy Swanson
Environmental and Ethical Dimensions of the Provision of a Basic Need: Water and Sanitation Services in East Africa	239	(20)
Nick Johnston
John Thompson
Munguti Katui-Katua
Mark Mujwajuzi
James Tumwine
Elizabeth Wood
Ina Porras
Part VI Conclusions	259	(18)
Economics, Ethics, and Environmental Policy	261	(16)
Daniel W. Bromley
Jouni Paavola
Index	277