the early history of modern ecological economics abstract this paper provides a historical perspective for the discussion on ecological economics as a special field of research by studying the historical background of ecological economics the present discussions and tensions inside the field might become easier to understand and to relate to the study is inspired by other studies of the emergence of new research areas done by sociologists and historians of science and includes both cognitive and social aspects macro trends and the role of individuals the basis for the paper is a combination of literature studies and interviews with key researchers from the field the story opens with the emergence of the new environmental agenda in the 1960s which was influenced by the scientific development in biology and ecology then it is outlined how the environmental challenge was met by economics in the 1960s around 1970 the basic ideas of ecological economics were given modern formulations but it took a long gestation period from the beginning of the 1970s to the end of the 1980s before ecological economics took shape during this gestation period the personal relationships between the actors were formed and the meetings that were decisive for the formal establishment of ecological economics took place

questioning the empirical basis of the environmental kuznets curve for co2 new evidence from a panel stationarity test robust to multiple breaks and cross dependence abstract this paper investigates the time series properties of per capita co2 emissions and per capita gdp levels for a sample of 86 countries over the period 1960 2000 for that purpose we employ a state of the art panel stationarity test which incorporates multiple shifts in level and slope thereby controlling for cross sectional dependence through bootstrap methods our analysis renders clear cut evidence that per capita gdp levels are nonstationary for the world as a whole while per capita co2 is found to be regime wise trend stationary the analysis of country groups shows that for africa and asia per capita co2 is best described as nonstationary while per capita gdp appears stationary around a broken trend in addition we find evidence of regime wise trend stationarity in both variables for the country groups consisting of america europe and oceania the results of our analysis carry important implications for the statistical modelling of the environmental kuznets curve for co2 since the differing order of integration in both variables for the world as a whole and for africa and asia calls into question the validity of panel cointegration techniques which assume that both variables are nonstationary and cointegrated with one another cointegration techniques would not be appropriate either for the case of america europe and oceania which are characterised by per capita gdp and co2 emissions being stationary around a broken trend similar conclusions are reached when we analyse country groups based on levels of development failure to properly characterise the time series properties of the data by not controlling for an unknown number of structural breaks and for cross sectional dependence could be responsible for the fragility and lack of robustness surrounding the estimation of environmental kuznets curves

environmental management in development the evolution of paradigms in the past quarter century environmental management has increasingly become a concern of governments more recently the traditional split between developers and conservationists has begun to break down conceptions of what is economically and technologically practical ecologically necessary and politically feasible are rapidly changing this report discusses the implications of five paradigms of environmental management in development the author notes that the remedial legalistic approach of environmental management is breaking down instead interest in the more economically integrated approach of resource management has recently taken hold several interdependent forces indicate that improving the economic management of pollution and resources may be a necessary but insufficient measure to create the conditions for sustainable development the perception of tradeoffs between development and environmental quality persists in the present debate but its necessity is greatly exaggerated according to this paper finally it is noted that paradigms may be impervious to evidence and institutions and societies too difficult to change whether when and how these issues are resolved may be modern civilization s most significant test

information order and knowledge in economic and ecological systems implications for material and energy use abstract ecological and economic systems are open systems that require energy to change the thermodynamic states of materials from naturally occurring to more valued forms these changes are accompanied by information flows and changes in the order of systems and their surroundings in this paper thermodynamics is used to assess these system changes and relate them to the knowledge present in a system particular emphasis is given to 1 the fundamental relationships among material energy and information flows and changes in order and knowledge 2 the role of equilibrium and non equilibrium thermodynamics in assessing system change 3 the increasing role of material and energy flows through economic systems and 4 the necessity for improved societal valuation of these flows

thermodynamic constraints on optimal depletion of copper and aluminum in the united states a dynamic model of substitution and technical change abstract the paper proposes a methodology to integrate concepts from thermodynamics into economic models of optimal natural resource use and to empirically determine relationships between changes in thermodynamic states of materials and the use of high quality energy sources the integration is aimed at an assessment of technologies substitution and technical change based on economic concepts that do justice to fundamental physical constraints a model of natural resource use and production has been developed that combines econometric time series analysis with dynamic modeling techniques the model explicitly includes thermodynamic constraints on i the process of separating minerals from crude ore ii smelting processes iii substitution among inputs and iv endogenous technical change in mining smelting and refining based on empirical information the model has been simulated to assess outer limits of feasible resource savings in copper and bauxite mining smelting and refining in the united states conclusions are drawn for the evaluation of products and effluents from mining smelting and refining operations with regard to changes in the physical resource base and environmental quality

from plan to plant effects of certification on operational start up in the emergent independent power sector in this paper we study the transition from planned venture to operational start up in the emergent independent power sector planned ventures face tremendous obstacles in assembling the resources necessary to begin operations we hypothesize and show that formal certification from authorized actors increases the likelihood of making this transition moreover we find that the effects of certification are contingent on the legitimacy of the sector as a whole certifications have a stronger effect on start ups when sector legitimacy is low than when it is high this research helps us understand a rarely studied organizational transition from entrepreneurial intention to actual operations within nascent sectors it directs attention to the legitimating effects of formal certification highlights the importance of a multilevel approach to legitimacy and contributes to the growing rapprochement between entrepreneurial studies and institutional theory

an optimal path to extinction poverty and resource degradation in the open agrarian economy this paper constructs a model of the open agrarian economy in order to explore the tendency of many such economies to evolve along paths characterised by severe environmental degradation it pays special attention to the importance of commodity prices and the transfer system in determining agricultural activity levels in ecologically delicate systems

resilience in the dynamics of economy environment systems the ecological concept of resilience has begun to inform analysis of change in economy environment systems the linkages between resilience and the stability of dynamical systems are discussed along with its role in understanding of the evolution of such systems particular linkages discussed include those between resilience biodiversity and the sustainability of alternative states recent developments in modelling the resilience of joint economy environment systems suggest the advantages of analysing change in the system as a markov process the transition probabilities between states offering a natural measure of the resilience of the system in such states it is argued that this emergent property of the collaboration between ecology and economics has far reaching implications for the way we think about model and manage the environmental sustainability of economic development

niche diversification in environmental ecological economics abstract this paper is devoted to the identification and comparison of the niches of neoclassical environmental economics nee and ecological economics eco it is presented in four sections section 1 argues that the existing literature does not make the differences and relations between the sister disciplines neatly transparent section 2 critically examines the antecedents of the subjects with reference to three structural dimensions such as scarcity perception problem solving orientation and range of integration section 3 collates the elements and reformulates the definitions section 4 is coda on the essay the divide between the paradigms which came to the surface during the 1960s became prominent through the growth controversy of the subsequent decade the controversy over the need for change of economic theory to cope with the growing intensity of environmental uncertainty makes the disciplines sore about each other the neoclassical paradigm comprising of elements like relative scarcity allocative approach market correction and technological optimism characterises nee the distinguishing characteristics of eco include thermodynamic irreversibility absolute scarcity economy ecosystem symbiosis biophysical approach ecological stewardship and prudent pessimism the niches are competitive and complementary in some respects and thus provide a unique example of fruitful niche diversification within environmental ecological economics we have a feeling that the economics profession can trace out the interface of the disciplines in some policy areas and raise the effectiveness of prescriptions so that this academic species diversity can serve humankind to its full potential

environmental bonds and environmental research in innovative activities abstract this paper considers the incentive to uncover potential future social costs of activities having no historical precedents since ex ante markets in the future external effects of historically unique activities are non existent the private incentives to uncover the possibility of thalidomide type results in such activities is weak the paper discusses the value of sequentially determined environmental bonds as mechanisms for the generation of research funds in these cases and derives measures for the calculation of such bonds

material flows and economic models an analytical comparison of sfa lca and partial equilibrium models abstract the growing concern for environmental problems in the current economy has spurred the study of the way materials and substances flow through the economy resulting in many different types of analysis since all of these have their merits and shortcomings much of the present theoretical research seems to be focusing on combining the best aspects of each model type into an integrated model the aim of this paper is to make a first step in bridging the gap between the various types of analysis of material flows in the economy by discussing the main differences and similarities of three often employed model types substance flow analysis life cycle assessment and partial economic equilibrium analysis instead of submitting each model to a lengthy theoretical discussion we apply them to a single hypothetical example of a pollution problem by doing so we are able to evaluate the differences and similarities of the methods and results of the model in a practical way it appears that the results of the three models are complementary rather than contradictory each of them puts an emphasis on different aspects of the real world a sequential application of a number of limited models may therefore be an approach that provides more useful information than the tedious construction and application of an encompassing model that integrates these models

bioeconomics and post keynesian economics a search for common ground abstract this paper is concerned with the links between two schools of economic thought which challenge the neoclassical synthesis bioeconomics refers to that school of economics stressing the fact that the human species is a part of the larger biosystem of the planet and ultimately subject to the same laws and limitations as other life forms post keynesian economics is a specific school of macroeconomics stressing the fundamental ideas of keynes marx and kalecki concerning uncertainty the nature of production and the role of government in economic affairs bioeconomics and post keynesian economics have much in common in terms of their methodological framework their emphasis on production rather than exchange and their interpretation of the social rate of discount a potential area of conflict between the two schools is their attitude toward economic growth the areas of commonality between the two schools are discussed and a research and policy program which combines the insights of both approaches is suggested

indicators of sustainable development some lessons from capital theory abstract interest in sustainable development has prompted a search for suitable indicators that might complement or supplant the traditional measures of economic success although there is no agreement about the precise meaning of sustainable development one idea which is increasingly in good currency is that sustainable development requires that the stock of capital that one generation passes on to the next be maintained or enhanced further this stock of capital is seen by some to comprise two elements manufactured capital and natural capital the extent to which these are believed to be substitutes or complements is one factor which separates the neoclassical school from some of its critics a premise of this paper is that if capital theory is relevant to sustainable development then it should also be helpful in developing indicators however even within the normal confines of economics capital theory is not a homogeneous body of analysis therefore an exploration of capital theory and its relevance to sustainable development can be expected to generate various perspectives on those measures most useful for gauging the sustainability of economic activity it is these linkages between capital theory in various schools of thought and possible indicators of sustainable development that are the subject of this paper

is sustainability optimal examining the differences between economists and environmentalists abstract this paper examines a number of possible explanations for the apparent differences between economists and environmentalists concerning economic growth and sustainable development some of the differences are well known and relate to issues such as resource scarcity intergenerational equity and the composition of social capital however our analysis finds that while economic notions of optimal growth and the techniques of benefit cost analysis have important advantages for evaluating complex tradeoffs because they are quantifiable they may have potentially serious drawbacks as well the paper focuses on two potential sources of bias in the use of welfare economics for social choice first there is a conservative reinforcement in benefit cost analysis which is likely to produce biases against policy interventions to protect a degraded environment second and perhaps more importantly the aggregation of individual willingness to pay as a measure of social benefits is shown to be invalid in the case of positional goods where the demand for the good reflects the desire of individuals to raise their own relative standing this error may cause the economic calculus to be biased against non positional goods including non rival goods such as environmental resources these biases further complicate the already strained assumptions in utilitarian based welfare economics that by relying on revealed preference and consumer sovereignty are unable to distinguish between or apply different weights to the satisfaction of different categories of preferences furthermore because the dynamic consequences of even small biases in judging social optimality may give rise to large social costs or advance an unsustainable path there is a danger in relying solely on a potentially biased measure of welfare as a basis for guiding social choice the paper concludes by suggesting that efforts to correct these drawbacks of economic analysis are likely to result in approaches to sustainable development that narrow the apparent differences between economists and environmentalists

economic growth and environmental degradation the environmental kuznets curve and sustainable development abstract in this paper we critically examine the concept of the environmental kuznets curve ekc it proposes that there is an inverted u shape relation between environmental degradation and income per capita so that eventually growth reduces the environmental impact of economic activity the concept is dependent on a model of the economy in which there is no feedback from the quality of the environment to production possibilities and in which trade has a neutral effect on environmental degradation the actual violation of these assumptions gives rise to fundamental problems in estimating the parameters of an ekc the paper identifies other econometric problems with estimates of the ekc and reviews a number of empirical studies the inference from some such ekc estimates that further development will reduce environmental degradation is dependent on the assumption that world per capita income is normally distributed when in fact median income is far below mean income we carry out simulations combining ekc estimates from the literature with world bank forecasts for economic growth for individual countries aggregating over countries to derive the global impact within the horizon of the bank s forecast 2025 global emissions of so 2 continue to increase forest loss stabilizes before the end of the period but tropical deforestation continues at a constant rate throughout the period

economy and environment a theoretical essay on the interdependence of economic and environmental systems preface notation guide 1 introduction part i the physical economy environment system 2 closed physical systems a model 3 structure and time in the physical system 4 technological change and the environmental constraints to physical growth part ii the economic system 5 the price system 6 prices property and the environment 7 economic conflict and environmental change part iii environmental strategies in an evolutionary economy environment system 8 time uncertainty and external effects 9 the market solution 10 the stationary state 11 conclusions references index

regulatory schemes and self protective environmental risk control a comparison of insurance liability and deposit refund systems abstract there has been an increasing interest in considering non traditional regulatory instruments for control of environmental risks traditional regulation has relied on liability in various forms after risky events have actually occurred there is concern that traditional instruments do not provide adequate signals to firms regarding social costs of risks this paper considers two important alternatives to traditional liability instruments insurance and deposit refund systems the purpose of the paper is to determine whether there is any theoretical superiority of these non traditional instruments in controlling environmental risk and safety a relatively simple model designed to capture the essential features of liability insurance and deposit refund instruments is developed and used to compare the resulting control levels under pure risk and pure uncertainty the paper shows how risk aversion limited liability afforded through bankruptcy and differences between social and private discount rates can affect the ranking of control levels under each of the three primary instruments the paper shows that under reasonable assumptions deposit refund systems such as input or discharge deposits or performance bonds will result in higher levels of controls than the other instruments results also suggest that it may be necessary to tailor regulatory instruments to specific firm situations such as requiring deposits from small firms in competitive industries

regulation school and environment theoretical proposals and avenues of research abstract the article explores the relevance of a particular approach of the institutionalist movement regulation theory to deal with the relationship between the economy and the environment regulation theory which appeared in france at the end of the 1970s is mainly interested in macroeconomic issues in contrast until now it has tended to neglect environmental questions by taking several key concepts of this theory accumulation regime mode of regulation institutional forms we have sought to assess its significance vis a vis the environmental field more precisely from the perspective of establishing an environmental regulationist theory we propose considering the economic relation to the environment as the articulation of three forms a transhistorical form a general capitalist form and a specific capitalist form the latter being variable in capitalist time and space we give several illustrations of the variability of the relation to the environment depending on the different accumulation regimes and the different modes of regulation two principal avenues of research are proposed historical analyses for given economic areas and comparative analyses relating in particular to different capitalist areas

an experimental analysis of the effectiveness of an environmental assurance bonding system on player behavior in a simulated firm it has long been recognized that the present command and control methods for pollution abatement are inefficient using market mechanisms for environmental management is a promising alternative to the direct regulatory approach market mechanisms are just beginning to appear in u s environmental policy for example tradable permit schemes are being developed and implemented for some air pollutants under the amended clean air act various other forms of taxes and tradable permits have been proposed however these systems do not address the large uncertainty inherent in most environmental problems one mechanism currently being studied to address uncertainty more effectively is a flexible environmental assurance bonding system designed to incorporate environmental criteria and uncertainty into market incentives this study uses an experimental approach employing an interactive computer game simulation model with human players to examine the effectiveness of the assurance bonding system under varying degrees of uncertainty an environmental cost efficiency index ecei or profit per unit waste is used to measure player performance preliminary results indicate that players are more successful under the assurance bonding system in terms of ecei than under the simulated current system

ecological economics in china origins dilemmas and prospects abstract this paper is a first step towards articulating a chinese version of ecological economics over the last decade ecological economics has attracted increasing attention in the west similarly since the early 1980s scholars in china have undertaken specific research on existing ecological economic issues in accordance with chinese political economic socio cultural and ecological conditions however this endeavor is hardly known in the west and little attention has been given so far to the potential role of chinese attitudes in the international ecological economics movement this paper is designed to make up for that neglect and attempts to address the following questions what social and cultural traditions are required for chinese ecological economics to operate what are the political and institutional implications of ecological economics in china will chinese ecological economists feel comfortable in a society where open debate is viewed as unacceptable behavior in order to clarify the chinese interpretation of ecological economics and its impact on the policy making process a preliminary overview of its emerging background evolutionary history key viewpoints and theories nature and policy influence is presented three major intellectual sources of chinese ecological economics are identified and the theoretical applications are emphasized then some theoretical and practical issues that may arise in future research are discussed along with implications of chinese ecological economics for the international community in addition to biophysical functions and ecological conditions socio political structures and processes need to be explicitly addressed in extending the research agenda of ecological economics

entropy structure and organisational change abstract the paper sets out a basis for rigorous thermodynamic characterisation of structural change and of organisational interdependencies between economic and environmental processes many attempts have been made to exploit entropy as a generic explanatory variable it has widely been proposed that entropy is a measure of the level of dis order of a system of how mixed up things are then as organisation is often thought synonymous with some notion of order it has been a small step to propose that increasing organisation is the converse of increasing entropy another suggestion has been that social system structure and change can be explained in terms of a tendency towards maximum entropy production the lotka principle of maximum energy dissipation all these notions must be rejected the putative entropy order connection has its inspiration in boltzmann s probabilistic interpretation of thermodynamic entropy as a measure of microscopic disorder this order principle is simply not applicable under conditions far from thermodynamic equilibrium prigogine conditions which prevail for all important economic and ecological processes under such conditions the relationship between entropy production and changes in structure or organisation is multi faceted and situation specific attempts to account for the specificity of societal activities in terms of a generic scalar measure of organisation or dissipation are largely after the fact and in no way do away with the need for analysis of institutional and ethical dimensions of human action in their own right when properly allied to institutional analysis however the far from equilibrium thermodynamics furnishes a rich impetus for a coevolutionary perspective in ecological economics with promise of incisive treatments of in particular issues of system environment codependency and of the time in determinacies of economy environmental change

production and environmental resources a prelude to an evolutionary framework the paper advances a framework to study the evolution of technology and institutions it is based on two simple tenets first the quality and quantity of environmental resources are defined and constrained by the regime of technology and institutions second the character and extent of innovations are informed and limited by the regime as well the framework is contrasted with neoclassical and ecological economics while the framework assimilates ideas from both paradigms it departs from them by stressing the importance of the technological institutional regime tir the two views ignore in different ways the significance of tir 46 the neoclassical program conceives the flow of innovations as tir independent while the ecological agenda regards the fund of resources as tir independent 1 consequently both camps fail to provide an endogenous account of the observed punctuated character of the evolution of tir neoclassical economists maintain that as a resource depletes its price rises which induces switching to a cheaper one encourages exploration or spurs invention harold barnett and chandler morse 7 11 state that nature imposes particular scarcities not an inescapable general scarcity the responses to environmental resource limitation are supposedly singular activities stripped from any underpinning regime the neoclassical disregard of tir heuristically resembles the fable of marie antoinette s folly in response to the scarcity of bread at the eve of the french revolution she advised according to legend buying cake instead ecological economists offer a different view of resource limits 48 for herman daly 21 8 nature really does impose an inescapable general scarcity while neoclassical economists emphasize relative limitation scarcity pricing ecological economists stress malthusian general limitation for ecological economists substitution can solve relative allocation but cannot solve general limitation general limitation can be avoided only if economic activity proceeded within certain boundaries or as put by martin o connor 69 within appropriate cyclical structure of resource transformations under the motto sustainable development a low pace production activity supposedly enables a population to replicate indefinitely ecological economists conceive

grazing the commons an empirical analysis of externalities subsidies and sustainability abstract an empirical means of measuring externalities in the fifty states of the us is presented and the relationship between externalities subsidies and sustainability is investigated firms seeking to maximize profits create externalities thus securing implicit internal subsidies the subsidies are generally supported by those less well off and the socioeconomic energy and environmental indicators of the public sector worsen as externalities and subsidies increase implicit subsidies due to externalities in pollution control energy consumption and taxes are quantified the amount of subsidy is calculated by state and statistically compared to socioeconomic energy environmental and economic variables poverty unemployment and income disparity are found to increase significantly while income economic development attractiveness energy efficiency and environmental quality decline with increasing externalization across states an empirical method of operationalizing sustainability is presented and the relationship of sustainability to subsidies is investigated and found to be significant and negative recommendations are presented for minimizing the effects of externalities

the environmental kuznets curve ekc theory part b critical issues according to the environmental kuznets curve ekc theory the process of economic growth is expected to limit the environmental degradation created in the early stages of development the first article of this study reviews the empirical studies examining various factors other than income that may lead to an ekc pattern the current article reviews in the first part the major critiques on the ekc speculation which relate to the following issues the normal distribution of world income the feedback from environmental degradation to economic growth the characteristics of the pollutant in question various econometric issues the evolution of consumption when income rises and the assumption about a common developmental pattern in all countries the second part discusses additional matters reported indirectly in the literature and or must be further examined there are doubts whether the gdp series captures the transition of production to the three productive sectors in empirical estimations and whether services are less polluting compared to industry activities finally the original kuznets theory which laid the groundwork for the ekc concept does not seem to solve income inequality problems

the coevolution of industries social movements and institutions wind power in the united states this study of the u s wind energy industry extends theory on the process of industry emergence by developing and testing a coevolutionary model of the relationship between social movement organizations smos institutions and industries building on research that suggests that smos can influence institutions and the path of emerging industries we show that the growth of an industry can also influence the diversity of social movements by motivating the participation of specialist smos these new smos in turn deploy distinct knowledge capabilities goals and strategies to produce institutional changes that are necessary for the continued growth of the industry our study offers a more complete conceptualization of the influence of social movements on industry emergence and growth and it extends understanding of how smo diversity is produced

development of ecological economics in australia and new zealand abstract this paper reviews the development of ecological economics in australia and new zealand since its beginnings in the late 1970s a historical account is presented that focuses particularly on the activities of the australia new zealand society for ecological economics and key ecological economics research activities achievements of ecological economics in australia and new zealand are assessed using a range of quantitative and qualitative data the main areas of expertise developed by australian and new zealand ecological economists were found to be theoretical foundations and visions for ecological economics biodiversity and resilience input output analysis heterodox valuation approaches analysis of economy environment interactions sustainability indicators sustainable agriculture fisheries and oceans and energy thermodynamics both countries are ranked at the top or near the top of the world rankings in terms of per capita isee membership and publication rates in ecological economics a defining feature of ecological economics in australia and new zealand has also been its practical and problem solving focus and the level of end user engagement the paper concludes by discussing the challenges that face the future development of ecological economics in australia and new zealand

a flexible assurance bonding system for improved environmental management abstract current methods of regulating activities that are known or suspected to be environmentally danaging are not working well they induce legal confrontation obfuscation and government intrusion into the inner workings of firms they tend to suppress technical and social innovation aimed at long term solutions they do not mesh well with the market signals that firms use to make decisions this paper discusses some of the underlying reasons for this problem and outlines a flexible environmental assurance bonding system designed to incorporate environmental criteria and uncertainty into the market system and to induce positive environmental technological innovation in addition to direct charges for known environmental damages an assurance bond equal to the current best estimate of the largest potential future environmental damages would be levied and kept in an interest bearing escrow account the bond plus a portion of the interest would be returned if and only if the firm could prove that the suspected damages had not occured or would not occur if damages did occur the bond would be used to rehabilitate or repair the environment and to compensate injured parties by requiring the users of environmental resources to post a bond adequate to cover potential future environmental damages with the possibility for refunds the burden of proof is shifted from the public to the resource user and a strong economic incentive is provided to research the true costs of environmentally innovative activities and to develop innovative cost effective pollution control technologies

simultaneity modeling analysis of the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis has been recognized in the environmental economics literature since the 1990 s various statistical tests have been used on time series cross section and panel data related to single and groups of countries to validate this hypothesis in the literature the validation has always been conducted by using a single equation however since both the environment and income variables are endogenous the estimation of a single equation model when simultaneity exists produces inconsistent and biased estimates therefore we formulate simultaneous two equation models to investigate the ekc hypothesis for fifty six countries using annual panel data from 1990 to 2012 with the end year is determined by data availability for the panel to make the panel data analysis more homogeneous we investigate this issue for a three income based panels namely high middle and low income panels given several explanatory variables our results indicate that there exists a bidirectional causality between economic growth and pollution emissions in the overall panels we also find that the relationship is nonlinear and has an inverted u shape for all the considered panels policy implications are provided

market in efficiency in valuing electric utilities the case of norwegian generating companies after deregulation of the energy market in norway a number of mergers and acquisitions of hydropower generating companies have taken place however valuation of these companies has proved controversial from an ex post perspective there is support for the criticism that generation assets have been sold too cheaply this article presents a simple valuation model providing evidence of how value has evolved on the basis of these results we discuss the valuation from an ex ante perspective and in the light of the market efficiency hypothesis of fama 1970 1991

literature survey on the relationships between energy environment and economic growth abstract the aim of this study is to exhibit an exhaustive survey which is related to the great flight of the literature of energy environment growth nexus at the individual and regional scale studies covering the period from 1978 to 2014 the survey takes into consideration the sample country region etc periods covering econometric strategies and conclusions our survey is based on the causality direction among i the energy use variables electricity nuclear renewable and non renewable and output growth ii between economic growth and environment and between the three variables at the same time globally these surveys provide paradoxical and not conclusive results which energy consumption can boost economic growth through the productivity enhancement and it can boost also the environmental damages through the enhancement of pollutant emissions our survey sheds more the lights on the energy environment growth literature by giving an extensive listing 1978 2014 of these causal linkages among the energy use variables environment and economic growth for both individual and collective cases there is a unanimous consensus about the importance of dealing with such dynamic relationship which is seems to be a cornerstone element in setting any ambition strategies energy ecological and economics

the evolution of new industries and the determinants of market structure several empirical regularities concerning firm growth rates and industry firm size distributions have been developed by studying primarily mature industries the primary purpose of this article is to bring together and extend empirical regularities on the evolution of new industries and to use these regularities to gain further insight into the forces governing industry evolution to explain these regularities a model is constructed which emphasizes how factors governing the early evolution of industries may shape their market structure at maturity it stresses how chance events and exogenous factors that influence the number of potential entrants to the industry the growth rate of incumbents and the ease of imitation of industry leaders will influence the ultimate number and size distribution of firms in the industry

is energy cost an accurate indicator of natural resource quality abstract the use of energy cost as an indicator of natural resource quality is examined energy cost is the direct and indirect energy used to produce a unit of a resource commodity different approaches to the role of energy in the economy are discussed and it is demonstrated theoretically that energy cost can give false indications of changes in resource quality this is because energy cost is only an accurate indicator of resource quality if either energy is the single primary factor of production and the economy can be represented by an input output model or if there is substitutability between the factors of production then marginal products must be proportional to the factors embodied energy these conditions are tested empirically using data from the us agricultural sector the results show that there is substitutability and marginal products are not proportional to embodied energy however the strong neoclassical assumption of price taking profit maximization can be rejected at a 5 level of significance though not at the 3 5 level the generality of the empirical results may be restricted due to data limitations but the theoretical framework can be applied to other data sets other resources and even other indicators

ecosystem prices activity analysis applied to ecosystems abstract in this paper a method is developed to derive prices for natural goods from information about material and energy flows within ecosystems the derivation is based on an analogy between ecological and economic systems both systems are characterized by flows of material and energy to derive ecosystem prices the mathematical structure of koopman s economic linear production model his activity analysis is applied to a material flow model of ecosystems the ecological interpretation of these prices is discussed and the uniqueness of the price system is investigated an algorithm for price calculation is derived and demonstrated with a numerical example finally it is discussed whether ecosystem prices may be suitable as surrogates for economic valuations of natural goods

planning for sustainability as a learning concept abstract the major theme of the following discussion is the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to guide sustainability related planning and management activities the proposed approach involves much more than the usual interaction between partners from different disciplines a revised process is needed to allow real cooperation in sustainability planning this process will require a more open recognition of the subjective priorities that become the framework of sustainable development issues of various interest groups and disciplines the sustainable development agenda should be more geared towards learning processes than projected future outcomes learning is enhanced through a participatory framework inclusive of stakeholder interests insights from a broad range of disciplinary areas including the science of complexity sociology philosophy law economics and management are presented to support this position the conventional stranglehold of disciplinary thinking in policy circles limits the capacity of our decision makers to unravel the complexity of all real world environmental policy and management problems policy making needs to embody respect for that complexity and allow flexibility to promote perpetually evolving learning as a fundamentally transdisciplinary framework ecological economics has some prospect to represent these interests in a purposeful and necessarily pragmatic way

limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption a neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics abstract there are many methodological approaches within ecological economics one of the principal modes of analysis is a modified version of the standard neoclassical model this paper examines the parallels which emerge between the ideas of some ecological economists concerning production and the ideas of others concerning consumption when these ideas are interpreted in the neoclassical paradigm it is well known that ecological economics is characterized by arguments concerning limits to substitution between inputs energy natural capital etc vs manufactured capital labor etc in production and the implications these have for sustainability however various authors have also expressed concerns regarding limits to substitution in consumption either between environmental assets and other goods or between basic needs commodities and other goods though the specific reasons for non substitution are different in the production and consumption cases the underlying theme is that individual commodities and other inputs have unique physical or other properties which make them poor substitutes ideas about irreversibility in production and economic development are also prominent in ecological economics likewise many authors have argued for similar irreversibilities in consumption behavior in analogy to the term technological change i coin the term preferential change to describe these phenomena the linking themes in this case are that the economy environment system is evolutionary in character and that external effects intended and unintended consequences of actions or processes imposed on other parties or resources are all pervasive

regional industrial dynamics under the environmental pressures in china abstract this study investigates how air pollution affects industrial path creation and industrial dynamics in china moving beyond existing literature that pays more attention to environmental effects of industrial development this paper focuses on how industrial development path changes due to environmental pollution using the data from chinese customs trade statistics ccts which covers the export trade data of prefecture level cities in china during 2002 2006 and 2012 to 2016 this paper probes into the effect of air pollution on industrial dynamics econometric model and instrumental variable iv regression are used in empirical analysis given the potential endogeneity issue results suggest that the interaction term between air pollution and density is negatively related to new industries entry it means that air pollution can reduce the effect of relatedness on industrial diversification and lead to path breaking further a channel for how air pollution affects industrial dynamics is examined in order to respond to air pollution local government conducts environmental regulation to lower the negative influence of air pollution which can lead to path breaking during industrial diversification process finally this paper seeks to bridge two strands of literature environmental economic geography and evolutionary economic geography