Green Economics: Confronting the Ecological Crisis: Confronting the Ecological Crisis

by Hahnel,Robin

• ISBN13: 9780765627964
• ISBN10: 0765627965
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2011-01-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Green Economics provides analysis of environmental problems and their potential solutions for students and practitioners in the fields of environmental studies and environmental economics and policy. The book's pluralistic, non-dogmatic, and committed investigation into the values of ecological sustainability, economic justice, and human dignity is a welcomed offering to those frustrated with mainstream treatments of environmental issues. Robin Hahnel offers a glimpse of where mainstream economics can be helpful, where mainstream economics can be misleading, and where heterodox ideas can provide important insights. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. xiii
Toward a New Paradigm	p. 1
Something Happened on the Way to the Twenty-First Century	p. 3
Full-World Economics: Limits to Growth	p. 4
Full-World Economics: Externalities Are the Rule, Not the Exception	p. 6
Ecosystem Complexity	p. 8
Notes	p. 9
Cost-Benefit Analysis: Beware	p. 11
The Lure of CBA	p. 11
CBA and Value Judgments	p. 14
Compensation	p. 16
When People Have Rights	p. 18
How Power and Wealth Matter	p. 19
When the Rate of Time Discount Is Determinant	p. 20
When Continuity Is Unlikely	p. 21
When Benefits Are Hard to Quantify	p. 24
Not All Uncertainty Is Created Equal	p. 30
Notes	p. 32
What on Earth Is Sustainable Development?	p. 35
Sustainable Development: A Definition	p. 35
What Is GDP?	p. 36
What Is Wrong With GDP?	p. 38
Economic Progress	p. 40
Sustainability as Intergenerational Equity	p. 41
When Capital Is Not Fungible	p. 42
Social Versus Economic Progress	p. 44
A Workable Definition	p. 46
Notes	p. 48
Why the Environment Is at Risk	p. 51
Useful Insights From Mainstream Economics	p. 53
Externalities and Professor Pigou	p. 54
Public Goods and the Free-Rider Problem	p. 59
The Tragedy of the Commons	p. 64
Climate Change Preview	p. 68
Resource Extraction and Rates of Time Preference	p. 69
Notes	p. 73
Where Mainstream Economics Dare Not Go	p. 75
The Growth Imperative: Beyond Assuming Conclusions	p. 75
Biases Against Leisure and Collective Consumption	p. 81
Competition and Absentee Ownership	p. 84
How Endogenous Preferences Matter	p. 85
Why the Kuznets Curve Will Not Save the Day	p. 91
How High Pigovian Taxes?	p. 95
Jobs Versus the Environment Is Not the Problem	p. 96
Notes	p. 100
Environmental Policy	p. 103
Free-Market Environmentalism: Misinterpreting the Coase Theorem	p. 105
The Coase Theorem: Standard Presentation	p. 106
There Is No Market!	p. 108
A Game of Divide-the-Pie	p. 112
Perfect Knowledge Is Not Complete Information	p. 114
Negotiations With Incomplete Information	p. 115
Multiple Victims: More Than Transaction Costs	p. 119
The Myth of Free-Market Environmentalism	p. 121
Notes	p. 125
Real-World Environmental Policy	p. 127
A Policy Primer	p. 128
Incidence, Progressivity, and Rebates	p. 133
Zoning and Sprawl	p. 135
Community Management: The Neglected Alternative for CPRs	p. 139
Permit Markets: Dream or Nightmare?	p. 144
Keeping Wall Street at Bay	p. 149
The United States: A Very Special Country Indeed	p. 151
Notes	p. 153
Climate Change	p. 157
A Brief History of Climate Negotiations	p. 159
The Road to Copenhagen	p. 159
The Free-Rider Problem	p. 163
Reconciling Effectiveness, Equity, and Efficiency	p. 164
Kyoto: Myth Versus Reality	p. 166
Notes	p. 172
Criticisms of Kyoto	p. 175
What Kyoto Got Right	p. 175
Too Little, Too Late	p. 178
Monitoring Problems	p. 179
The Case for Carbon Trading	p. 181
The Case Against Carbon Trading	p. 184
Efficiency Problems	p. 190
Equity Problems	p. 191
Enforcement Problems: The Invisible Elephant	p. 192
Notes	p. 192
Beyond Kyoto	p. 195
Let Science Set the Caps	p. 195
Caps for All	p. 196
Equitable Caps: The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework	p. 197
Capping Net Emissions	p. 199
A New Sheriff for the Carbon Market	p. 201
Why Not an International Carbon Tax?	p. 204
Can It Sell in Brussels, Beijing, and Buffalo?	p. 207
A Useful Role for Environmental Justice Activists	p. 210
Notes	p. 213
Appendix to Part IV: Exercise on Climate Control Treaties	p. 215
Conclusion	p. 229
References	p. 243
Index	p. 249
About the Author	p. 259
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.