modified ecological footprint accounting and analysis based on embodied exergy a case study of the chinese society 1981 2001 abstract the resource consumption of the chinese society from 1981 to 2001 is investigated by ecological footprint ef as an aggregate indicator based on the theory of ecological thermodynamics a modified calculation of ecological footprint termed as embodied exergy ecological footprint eeef in contrast to the conventional one is performed and related overall trends of the chinese society 1981 2001 are analyzed the annual policy for the individual sector is described in detail corresponding to the ef and eeef components comparison of the conventional ef and the eeef based on different views of ecological production is outlined the ef intensity and eeef intensity are also presented to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output finally eeef is suggested to serve as a modified indicator of ef towards illustrating the productions of the resource environment population and thereby reflecting the ecological overshoot of the general ecological system

material flows vs natural capital what makes an economy sustainable abstract in the discourse about sustainable development constant natural capital is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability but what is natural capital the concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability strong and weak subsequently a critique of the natural capital concept is brought forward from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective following this critique the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service mips as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability in conclusion a change of perspective is proposed due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the constant natural capital criterion which refers to a stock it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows i e material inputs to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not

the accounting push and the policy pull balancing environment and economic decisions abstract the use of information in environmental and economic policy has been a theme for over 100 years but standards for integrating environmental and economic information were not adopted until 2012 through the system of environmental economic accounting seea for 20 years the technical push to develop accounts proceeded largely independently of the pull from the intended or likely end users of accounts consequently governments have little knowledge of the accounting or how it might be used we examine why public policy imperatives have not yet pulled environmental accounting into the mainstream and explain how accounting can help reshape government decision making as part of this a model showing the place of accounts in the information system and the policy cycle is presented along with a research agenda and principles for the decision centred design of accounts we conclude that a phased implementation of the accounts as well as additional research into their applications will be needed to build practical understanding and political acceptance of the accounts

the role of exergy in energy policy making abstract this paper deals with the utilization of exergy as an efficient tool for energy policy making applications since exergy is a measure of quantity and quality of the energy sources unlike energy which is only about the quantity in addition energy and exergy concepts are evaluated for various actual processes and the role of exergy is discussed for energy and environment policy making activities from several key perspectives e g quality energy conservation environment economy and sustainable development the results of this study exhibit that the potential usefulness exergy in addressing and solving environmental problems as well as attaining sustainable development is crucial

expectations capital gains and income i introduction this article argues that the distinction between expected and unexpected capital gains losses is fundamental to the measurement of income the way capital gains are treated can have a significant impact on major macroeconomic statistics such as national income and saving the balance of payments government income and saving and depreciation see gale and sabelhaus 1999 joisce and wright 2001 the recent sale of spectrum licenses is a case in point the spectrum a natural asset over which governments enforce property rights became unexpectedly valuable as a result of the development of mobile telephones in 2000 and 2001 some governments realized gains of 30 billion or more in a day by auctioning licenses to use sections of the spectrum see un statistics division 2000 the concept of income although widely used remains vague it is necessary to inquire why the concept of income is needed and what use it serves the main purpose of income is to provide guidance to households or other economic units including government on the rate at which they can afford to consume when there is uncertainty about future resources the more successfully measured income meets this requirement the greater its power as an explanatory variable for the analysis of consumer behavior the treatment of expected and unexpected capital gains in income measurement is a continuing source of controversy 1 even in a perfect foresight setting the concept of income is not straightforward hicks 1946 considered a number of definitions two in particular command support in the literature hicksian income no 1 is the maximum amount that can be consumed while maintaining wealth intact 2 hicksian income no 2 is the maximum sustainable level of consumption the general consensus that emerges from the literature is that with perfect foresight all capital gains are included in hicksian income no 1 however asheim 1996 shows that some capital gains are excluded from hicksian income no 2 when the interest rate varies over time both income concepts coincide when the interest rate is fixed when the perfect foresight assumption is relaxed a distinction must be drawn between expected and unexpected capital gains it is important that we move beyond a perfect foresight setting because the concept of income has been developed primarily to assist decision taking under uncertainty if income is meant to act as a budget constraint indicating the resources available for consumption each period the important question is how should a rational consumer react to unexpected capital gains this article develops a general theoretical framework for the measurement of hicksian income no 1 under uncertainty that is capable of handling all kinds of capital gains on all kinds of assets ranging from money market assets to mineral deposits 3 first the concept of income with perfect foresight is developed and analyzed in the following section uncertainty is introduced income depends on expectations of future receipts that are liable to be revised with the passage of time the time at which income in a particular period is measured is therefore crucial income can be measured at any time but attention has tended to focus on the beginning and end of the period hicks 1946 178 79 described income as measured at these times as ex ante and ex post income ex ante income as noted by eisner 1990 p 1180 is essentially the same as friedman s 1957 concept of permanent income ex post income as defined by hicks now usually described as haig simons income after two earlier proponents of the concept is a widely used objective measure familiar to most economists however it is conceptually flawed because it utilizes two different and generally inconsistent set of expectations those held at the beginning and end of the period we define a family of conceptually consistent income measures each based only on the expectations held at the time of measurement that we describe as generalized hicksian income

protection with static collusion the present paper argues that when static collusion takes place there is a new justification for a tariff this occurs in the context of a model in which consumers observe prices at a cost and the industry structure is a duopoly with a home and a foreign firm because costly search induces imperfect information about prices on the part of consumers the ability to rapidly revise posted prices on the part of the duopolists leads to the appropriation of a substantial amount of consumer surplus the static collusion takes place under any trade policy thus a home tariff that shifts a duopoly equilibrium to the advantage of the home firm will be demonstrated to entail in the case of a nonprohibitive tariff no consumption cost from protection because this tariff generates revenue for the home government and greater profits for the home firm it will be welfare improving to the home country the concept of profit shifting as a motive for commercial policy in imperfectly competitive markets was pioneered by brander and spencer 6 2 in a model where home and foreign duopolists are nash courot competitors a tariff can shift profits from the foreign to the home firm by inducing the foreign firm to play less aggressively in the present paper the tariff shifts profits within the collusive outcome by precluding more aggressive play by the foreign firm 3 furthermore davidson 8 has disclosed that the level of a tariff can affect the incentives to collude in a quantity setting supergame with nash cournot punishments in the present model the tariff affects the collusive outcome that can be supported it does not however affect the incentives to collude

ecosystem service valuation for national accounting a reply to obst hein and edens 2016 while recent experimental frameworks for national ecosystem service accounting have shown substantial progress in our view some crucial methodological issues remain that deserve further consideration before setting final standards in response to the landmark work of obst et al environ resour econ 64 1 23 2016 doi 10 1007 s10640 015 9921 1 we provide arguments with regard to the suitability of particular valuation approaches generally we agree that respective valuation methods need to produce values that are consistent with national accounting standards such as representing exchange values however we disagree with their conclusions regarding specific valuation techniques firstly the circumstance that methods used for estimating shadow prices can also be used to derive consumer surplus does not justify the general exclusion of all shadow pricing methods for valuation of ecosystem services for national accounts especially for public ecosystem services secondly that preference based methods can also be used to assess welfare changes does not imply that cost based methods are generally better suited for ecosystem accounting to the contrary we see an essential need for preference information in accounting contexts thirdly that accounting standards use a written down replacement cost approach does not mean ecosystem accounting requires to employ a replacement cost approach to the contrary we argue that assessing ecosystem degradation through restoration costs would be in line with writing down depreciation but we also point to its limits

ecosystem wealth in the barents sea abstract we develop an inclusive wealth type index for natural capital in the barents sea that accounts for ecosystem services via trophic interactions we consider three key fish species in the barents sea under stochastic growth dynamics compared to evaluation at market prices the estimated wealth from the inclusive wealth approach is several times higher ecosystem wealth depends on the management scheme and we consider both business as usual bau and an optimized ecosystem based management scheme ebm while bau maintains wealth near its current level 5 increase in the long run ebm increases wealth with almost 20 in the short run and more than 25 in the long run realized shadow prices suggest that prey species stocks are undervalued when evaluated at market prices

spatial sustainability trade and indicators an evaluation of the ecological footprint the search for frameworks and indicators of sustainable development has taken a prominent place in this journal however some specific aspects have received little or no attention notably the spatial dimension and the role of international trade in indicator development moreover many sustainable development indicators comprise implicit valuations weighting schemes and policy objectives which are insufficiently recognised as such this contribution tries to highlight these issues by means of a review of a recently proposed indicator for ecological economic analysis namely the ecological footprint that has been developed by wackernagel and rees its concept and calculation procedure are criticised on a number of points and it is concluded that the ecological footprint is not the comprehensive and transparent planning tool as is often assumed in explaining our position we will argue that spatial sustainability and regional sustainable development have not been precisely discussed so far neither in the literature on trade and environment nor in that on sustainable development we will defend the view that trade can contribute positively and negatively to environmental unsustainability consequently indicators and models are needed that allow for analysing interactions and trade offs between such opposite effects 1999 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

national accounting and the valuation of ecosystem assets and their services there has long been interest in integrating the value of environmental stocks and flows into standard measures of economic activity and wealth in particular through the development of adjusted measures of gdp and extended measures of national wealth this paper examines how the valuation of ecosystem services and ecosystem assets can be undertaken in an integrated national accounting setting we clarify the relevant valuation principles most significantly the need to apply the concept of exchange values and explain why the integration of ecosystem services necessitates an extension of the standard production boundary used in economic measurement the main implications of an accounting approach are discussed including the need to distinguish benefits from services the need for valuation methods that exclude consumer surplus and the importance of aligning measures of income and degradation remaining challenges include the treatment of low or negative rents accounting for ecosystem disservices and the derivation of values for ecosystem assets meeting these challenges and advancing work in this area should be the joint focus of economists ecologists and accountants

measuring natural capital towards accounts for the uk and a basis for improved decision making the paper describes the ongoing project begun by the uk office for national statistics and the department for the environment food and rural affairs in 2011 to compile comprehensive natural capital accounts for the uk it describes the basis on which the accounts have been constructed discusses key issues which have arisen and presents the results to date it also sets out how restoration accounts for individual projects can not only facilitate conventional cost benefit analysis but also add to relevant material for decision makers more widely the paper describes how natural capital accounts can underpin well based decision making for example in implementation of the uk government s new 25 year plan for the environment in addition by providing information on one of the missing capitals such accounts can augment analysis of the behaviour of the economy generally

rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values ecosystem service approaches have become a prominent basis for planning and management cultural services and non use values are included in all major typologies and present some of the most compelling reasons for conserving ecosystems though many barriers exist to their explicit characterization the values that conform least well to economic assumptions variously lumped together with as cultural services have proven elusive in part because valuation is complicated by the properties of intangibility and incommensurability which has in turn led to their exclusion from economic valuation we argue that the effectiveness of the ecosystem services framework in decision making is thwarted by i conflation of services values and benefits and ii failure to appropriately treat diverse kinds of values we address this challenge by 1 distinguishing eight dimensions of values which have implications for appropriate valuation and decision making 2 demonstrating the interconnected nature of benefits and services and so the ubiquity of intangible values 3 discussing the implications of these propositions for ecosystem services research and 4 outlining briefly a research agenda to enable decision making that is ecologically appropriate and socially just because many ecosystem services co produce cultural benefits full characterization of services must address non material values through methods from diverse social sciences

perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital economics from an ecological footprint perspective this paper argues that perceptual distortions and prevailing economic rationality far from encouraging investment in natural capital actually accelerate the depletion of natural capital stocks moreover conventional monetary analyses cannot detect the problem this paper therefore makes the case for direct biophysical measurement of relevant stocks and flows and uses for this purpose the ecological footprint concept to develop the argument the paper elaborates the natural capital concept and asserts the need of investing in natural capital to compensate for net losses it shows how the ecological footprint can be used as a biophysical measure for such capital and applies this concept as an analytical tool for examining the barriers to investing in natural capital it picks four issues from a rough taxonomy of barriers and discusses them from an ecological footprint perspective it shows why marginal prices cannot reflect ecological necessities how interregional risk pooling encourages resource liquidation how present terms of trade undermine both local and global ecological stability and how efficiency strategies may actually accelerate resource throughput affirming the necessity of biophysical approaches for exploring the sustainability implications of basic ecological and thermodynamic principles it draws lessons for current development

environmental accounting for pollution in the united states economy this study presents a framework to include environmental externali ties into a system of national accounts the paper estimates the air pollution damages for each industry in the united states an inte grated assessment model quantifies the marginal damages of air pol lution emissions for the us which are multiplied times the quantity of emissions by industry to compute gross damages solid waste com bustion sewage treatment stone quarrying marinas and oil and coal fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added the largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal fired electric generation whose damages range from 0 8 to 5 6 times value added jel e01 l94 q53 q56

assessing the energy saving effect of urbanization in china based on stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model abstract the rapid urbanization process has posed great challenges to china s energy system this paper uses the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology stirpat model to evaluate the energy saving effect of china s urbanization based on provincial panel data the results suggest that 1 the urbanization induces the energy consumption with a notable negative energy saving effect 2 the heterogeneity of urbanization impact on energy consumption is analyzed in different stages of urbanization showing that the energy saving effect of urbanization follows a u shaped path 3 considering the heterogeneity of the energy saving effect of urbanization at different income levels the energy saving effect increases with income level the outcome may draw a causation picture on the relationship between energy consumption and urbanization in addition an in depth causation analysis on energy inefficiency of china s urbanization is carried out and policy recommendations are put forward accordingly

sustainability indicators policy and governance issues for ecological economics abstract ecological economics is a major forum for discussion of theoretical and analytical aspects of measuring sustainability the role of sustainability indicators as an evaluation method for sustainability within the emerging context of governance merits further analysis focusing on policy processes surrounding the production of sustainability indicators this paper addresses two questions what is the potential utility of indicators for policy and in what ways can indicators influence governance the former is addressed by exploring three disciplines with long histories of indicator application public administration studies urban studies and environmental sciences the latter is addressed by distilling key perspectives from public policy literature on knowledge utilisation and policy learning which become the foundation for clarifying the notion of policy resonant indicators this clarification is achieved by canvassing the spectrum of the influences on indicators and the mechanisms of their resonance in policy processes the final section of the paper brings these arguments together by exploring two major insights in terms of challenges for ecological economics strengthening indicator theory and practice by addressing four key ingredients and mobilisation of indicators through their active use within the context of governance

entrepreneurship social mobility and income redistribution in south india development economists have been preoccupied with the problem of increasing the size of the gnp pie to the relative neglect of its distribution despite the recent disenchantment with the viewpoint that all classes share in the benefits of industrial growth empirical data on the distribution of income business opportunity and economic power are in short supply many of the studies on entrepreneurship and economic development when they are not apologetics for ruthless capitalist exploitation as paul baran suggests extol the achievements of the capitalist entrepreneur without examining class origins and monopoly advantage joseph schumpeter sees entrepreneurs irrespective of class origin as heroic figures with the dream and will to found a private kingdom to conquer adversity to achieve success for its own sake and to experience the joy of creation for gustav papanek 1967 the private entrepreneur who is frugal diligent far sighted remarkably able and willing to take political risks is in large part responsible for the success of pakistan in achieving rapid industrialization

incorporating resilience in the assessment of inclusive wealth an example from south east australia this paper explores the consequences of changes in a system s resilience on the sustainability of resource allocation decisions as measured by inclusive wealth iw arrow et al in environ resour econ 26 647 685 2003 we incorporate an estimate of resilience in iw by taking account of known or suspected thresholds that can lead to irreversible or practically irreversible changes in the productivity and value of assets and hence social welfare these thresholds allow us to identify policies or projects that may be leading to an increased risk of decline in capital stocks the wealth of the region such risks are not reflected through usual measures of current system performance e g agricultural production we use the goulburn broken catchment in south eastern australia as a case study to explore the significance and practicality of including resilience in inclusive wealth estimates

embracing uncertainty in building energy efficiency policy a case study of a building energy standard abstract quantified goals for reducing energy consumption in buildings play a significant role in national and international energy policy calculations of potential energy savings from different interventions may be unreliable due to various types of uncertainty resulting in a performance gap between predictions and actual energy consumption yet building energy policy continues to rely heavily on apparently robust calculations of energy savings raising the question of why and how the policy process tolerates uncertainty and inaccuracy when quantification is its central logic we describe a case study of the development of a new mandatory building energy standard in which there is a lack of consensus on the energy it would save we found that when this uncertainty was brought to light the policy process raised other unquantified logics in favour of energy efficiency measures using literature on calculation and expertise we discuss how quantification is used in policy making and how uncertainties are repressed enabling the energy performance gap to persist we conclude that broader awareness of the modes in which quantitative and other logics are used in energy policy and a reframing of the types of energy savings to be made may serve policy making better than an illusion of calculative certainty

development of the seea 2003 and its implementation abstract the preparation of the system of environmental and economic accounts 2003 marks an important milestone in the world of official statistics just as the development of the original guidelines for national accounting in the 1950s was the first step toward today s robust internationally comparable economic statistics the system of environmental and economic accounts 2003 offers hope to bring order and comparability to environmental statistics how the system came to be and why it is an important achievement are outlined this is followed by an overview of its accounting structure a discussion of the implementation of the seea 2003 both in ideal terms and as actually practiced in statistical offices concludes

how does natural resource accounting become powerful in policymaking a case study of changing calculative frames in local energy policy in finland abstract the paper explores the role of natural resource accounting and calculations as tools for inducing movement towards ecologically sound policy making we draw from the theoretical debates in social studies of science and technology sts to understand how calculations gain their power in real world decision making through in depth case analysis of a local energy production decision in finland we study how and under what conditions calculative methods related to environmental valuation affect the rationalities applied in policy decisions on the basis of our analysis we claim that new calculative rationalities do not become significant through changing ways of thinking alone there is a need for shift of calculative framing this shift requires active promotion by powerful actors and furthermore new framings need to become embedded in the rules of the game of decision making our analysis suggests that the methods of sts can provide a valuable tool for economists creation of richer understanding of the dynamics between calculative rationalities and the institutions of decision making in depth case analysis of decision making involving the use of natural resources brings out the multitude of ways in which calculations can take part in or be excluded from the making of natural resource policy

specification of hedonic regressions non nested tests on measures of neighborhood quality abstract the j test a non nested test is used to determine which set of neighborhood variables best explains the variation in housing prices the results indicate that characteristics of neighbors race and socio economic descriptors are more important than the quality of public services

payments for ecosystem services as commodity fetishism abstract payments for ecosystem services pes economically reward resource managers for the provision of ecosystem services and are thus characterised by i an ecological function subject to trade ii the establishment of a standard unit of exchange iii and supply demand and intermediation flows between those who sell and buy ecosystem services this paper departs from the term commodity fetishism broadly understood as the masking of the social relationships underlying the process of production to illuminate three invisibilities in the commodification of ecosystem services firstly we argue that narrowing down the complexity of ecosystems to a single service has serious technical difficulties and ethical implications on the way we relate to and perceive nature secondly the commodification of ecosystem services denies the multiplicity of values which can be attributed to these services since it requires that a single exchange value is adopted for trading finally we suggest that the process of production exchange and consumption of ecosystem services is characterised by power asymmetries which may contribute to reproducing rather than addressing existing inequalities in the access to natural resources and services

backward and forward looking shadow prices in inclusive wealth accounting an example of renewable energy capital abstract attaching weights to the list of capital assets is crucial in inclusive wealth accounting and sustainability assessments these weights or shadow prices can be constructed in theory by looking prospectively at future social profits that the capital in question is expected to yield in practice however both backward and forward looking shadow prices are used this study confirms that these two approaches are theoretically equivalent under strong assumptions and reviews how and why the two approaches are taken the two approaches are then applied to renewable energy capital rec which has rarely been done in either produced or natural capital accounting and sustainability assessments renewable energy capital provides an ideal example with which to compare the two approaches as it is a class of produced capital that substitutes both produced and natural capital the numerical results of both approaches demonstrate that renewable energy capital starts to account for as large a share as natural capital does if not produced capital or inclusive wealth in those countries where natural capital is poorly endowed and investment in renewable energy capital has been witnessed

green accounting and economic policy abstract through the lens of conventional national accounting resource depletion and natural environment degradation often appear misleadingly as desirable economic growth the old system of national accounts sna has been revised and a set of environmental satellite accounts proposed certain weaknesses however pervade the new proposals the conventional measurements remain largely unaltered and the satellite accounts are of unclear purpose and unnecessarily complex as proposed they rely on the valuation of environmental stocks while the economically more important flow accounts to their detriment are to be derived indirectly from changes in stock values the sna the paper stresses is primarily an economic framework incapable of capturing all environmental change and the national accounts are far more useful economically than environmentally greening the accounts would be optional for most affluent countries whose overriding environmental concern is pollution this can be addressed directly through taxation and regulation pollution information in satellite accounts can indeed be valuable but revised and fully integrated resource accounting is a priority concern for those developing countries that are running down natural resources and for which conventional accounting distorts macroeconomic measurement analysis and policy the paper argues that green accounting can only ensure income sometimes called weak sustainability which should be considered as a step leading ultimately to an ecological or stronger sustainability

simulated exchange values and ecosystem accounting theory and application to free access recreation abstract this paper discusses the simulated exchange value method a practical method to estimate values for goods and services currently outside of the market in a manner consistent with the market based figures considered in national accounts the method proposes to simulate in a partial equilibrium context the price that would occur if a good or service outside of the market such as free access recreation in forests were internalized the method takes into account the demand estimated using non market valuation techniques the supply and the market structure the discussion covers the case of a linear demand and the case in which the demand is estimated using discrete choice methods this paper applies the method to free access recreation in the forests of andalusia in the south of spain and compares the results to those obtained using hicksian variations

emergy based ecological footprint analysis for a mega city the dynamic changes of shanghai abstract to move towards sustainable urban development interactions between economic and ecological systems should be further investigated due to their coupled relations in this study we propose an emergy based ecological footprint eef analysis framework shanghai was selected as a case study city to see its dynamic changes from 2007 to 2016 the results show that shanghai had a large ecological deficit an extremely high ecological footprint intensity and a poor coordination relationship between its ecological system and its economic system indicating a great ecological challenge that it is facing the uneven distribution of its emergy ecological footprint is mainly due to the large share of fossil fuels land type but with the city s great efforts the overall ecological pressure has been reduced and the coordination relationship has also been improved while the local economy is still booming pearson correlation analysis further indicates that the city s policy on developing tertiary industry has resulted in a positive effect on improving the coordinating relationship the ratio between the output value of heavy industry and gross industrial output value has the most negative correlation with the coordinating relationship finally policy recommendations are raised by considering the local realities these recommendations can also provide valuable insights to other megacities with similar challenges

participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance this paper introduces a special section devoted to participation and evaluation for sustainable river basin governance the departing point for this research was the recognition that although there is a relative agreement regarding the need to develop new multi dimensional inclusive and plural approaches to water resource management there is still a deficiency of related methodologies and tools this acknowledgement has motivated the undertaking of the advisor integrated evaluation for sustainable river basin governance research project which aimed at improving the understanding of evaluation processes as part of river basin planning and management and to test the use of specific tools to support the conduct of participatory processes the paper starts with a discussion of the concept of integrated water resources management and an illustration of the water policies that have been adopted in different countries as a response to these trends the conceptual framework that was developed in advisor is then presented as well as the main results from the ex post analysis of the decision processes regarding five water related projects in different european countries this analysis concluded that in most situations the decision making processes fell short of including the interests perceptions and values of affected parties the remaining of the paper introduces the articles that form this special section mostly devoted to the testing of new platforms for participation and deliberation in the final section a discussion on the assumptions and limitations of deliberative processes is presented based on the results from the application of the different methods further research needs on the integration of different deliberative tools and on the integration of deliberation with decision processes are identified

available capital utilized capital and shadow prices in inclusive wealth accounting abstract previously accounting for comprehensive or inclusive wealth has focused on the supply side of capital assets however human well being created by capital assets inherently depends on the demand side as well in particular if capital is not utilized at its full capacity then realized or actual human well being may be less affected by available capital than by effective or utilized capital in principle this notion is embodied in a shadow price which is defined as the marginal contribution of capital assets to social well being the shadow price becomes higher if the underlying resource allocation mechanism improves in practice one can account for such underutilization by adjusting shadow prices to reflect only the utilized quantity of the capital in question furthermore capital utilization has different nuanced implications for produced human and natural capital and its implications even vary across some classes of natural capital within this line of theoretical thought we provide empirical estimates of the changes in inclusive wealth and sustainability of selected developing countries in recent years by comparing available and utilized capital assets we find that sustainability assessments may be revised based on utilized capital due to among others human capital underemployment and non renewable natural capital accessibility

economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services abstract the purpose of this special issue is to elucidate concepts of value and methods of valuation that will assist in guiding human decisions vis a vis ecosystems the concept of ecosystem service value can be a useful guide when distinguishing and measuring where trade offs between society and the rest of nature are possible and where they can be made to enhance human welfare in a sustainable manner while win win opportunities for human activities within the environment may exist they also appear to be increasingly scarce in a full global ecological economic system this makes valuation all the more essential for guiding future human activity this paper provides some history background and context for many of the issues addressed by the remaining papers in this special issue its purpose is to place both economic and ecological meanings of value and their respective valuation methods in a comparative context highlighting strengths weakness and addressing questions that arise from their integration

the welfare economic theory of green national accounts this paper takes a critical look at the literature on green national accounts the problem studied is to find a linear index of economic variables that responds to perturbations in the same direction as social well being the thesis of a large literature that net national product which is a flow is that index in closed economies is shown in some interpretations to be simply false and in others to suffer from deep estimation problems it is argued that capital depreciation using shadow prices should certainly be included in national accounts but that the right welfare index is a comprehensive measure of wealth defined as the shadow value of an economy s stock of all capital assets it is shown that comprehensive wealth is usable as a criterion for policy evaluation as well as for determining sustainable economic development

do we need ecosystem accounts the internationally adopted system of environmental economic accounting measures the interaction between the economy and the natural environment its central framework accounts for the depletion of natural resources but omits environmental degradation notably from pollution a recent companion volume on experimental ecosystem accounting addresses ecosystem degradation but excludes the depletion of natural assets its physical accounts notably on land cover and use could support the management and conservation of ecosystems policies of sustainable economic performance and growth require however integrative information on both depletion and degradation at national and sectoral levels integrated environmental and economic accounts can provide this information without the detour of ecosystem accounting

recording environmental assets in the national accounts accounting information is a core element of economic decision making at both national and corporate levels it is widely accepted that much economic activity is dependent upon natural capital and natural resources generically termed environmental assets in an accounting context environmental assets are under threat of depletion and degradation from economic activity consequently the incorporation of information on environmental assets into standard accounting frameworks is an essential element in mainstreaming environmental information and broadening the evidence base for economic decisions and the assessment of sustainability this paper describes the treatment of environmental assets within the national economic accounts and summarizes recent developments that extend the accounting approaches as described in the united nations system of environmental economic accounting seea the potential for implementation of accounting standards for environmental assets is shown through a description of work in australia on environmental economic accounting

capital subsidies and countervailing duties in oligopolistic industries abstract under gatt countries are allowed to impose countervailing duties to offset foreign subsidies however gatt rules limit the amount of duty to the amount of the subsidy this paper examines a generalized model of imperfect competition with capital subsidies and shows the conditions under which a countervailing duty will offset the effect of the subsidy on exports also conditions are specified under which exports will increase despite the imposition of the maximum tariff under gatt in addition the paper considers whether profit shifting motives for a subsidy still exist even when this maximum duty is anticipated

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

national natural capital accounting with the ecological footprint concept abstract there is a growing consensus among natural and social scientists that sustainability depends on maintaining natural capital however progress to put this ecological condition to practice has been slow not least because of the inability of making these objectives measurable therefore to overcome this obstacle assessment frameworks for natural capital are needed this study presents a simple framework for national and global natural capital accounting it demonstrates using the example of italy an accounting framework which tracks national economies energy and resource throughput and translates them into biologically productive areas necessary to produce these flows this calculation has been applied to over 52 countries with this framework based on the ecological footprint concept human consumption can be compared with natural capital production at the global and national level using existing data

measuring ecological capital state of the art trends and challenges abstract it is essential to assess the value of nature as it provides various benefits for human economic development and well being it has been 20 years since two prominent publications came out in valuing nature new concepts and methods have emerged since then this study aimed to 1 investigate the relationship between the new proposed concept ecological capital and the existing two concepts natural capital and ecosystem services and 2 examine the research trends of ecological capital accounting publications from 1997 to 2017 bibliometric analysis was used to reveal the research trends the results showed that the total number of publications has rapidly increased since 1997 and this growth trend will be maintained in the future the most productive journal country institute and author were ecological economics usa chinese academy of sciences and dr verburg respectively ecosystem services and land were the most frequent types of ecological capital non economic evaluation approaches became less of a favorite over time and economic valuation methods were mostly applied in last five years the integration of different methods has attracted increasing academic attention the progress advantages and limitations of different methods were summarized in this study including seea ecological footprint exergy emergy lca and economic valuation approaches as well as newly developed modelling approaches the last part of this study presented three challenges in this academic field the need to 1 establish a standard framework 2 consider the transfer transport of ecological capital and 3 improve capabilities for decision making

anti dumping and countervailing duties under oligopoly abstract this paper constructs a conjectural variations model of international oligopoly in which the home country s optimal policy responses to the foreign government s subsidies and foreign firms dumping can be calculated some theoretical support is found for tariffs that countervail part of the foreign export subsidy the optimal fraction depends on the size of own and cross effects in demand and on the extent of market competition however no normative case is found for anti dumping duties

sustainability of nations by indices comparative study between environmental sustainability index ecological footprint and the emergy performance indices abstract the present work makes a comparison between the two most used environmental sustainability indices of nations ecological footprint and environmental sustainability index with two emergy ratios renewability and emergy sustainability index all of them are gaining space within the scientific community and government officials despite the efforts for obtaining an index that adequately represents the sustainability of a region according to the result of this research nowadays there is not yet a completely satisfactory index we consider that all of them need to be improved but the results point out the possibility of obtaining one better index of sustainability through the junction of ecological footprint with renewability emergy index

environmental regulations and the problem of sustainability moving beyond market failure abstract the standard metaphor of market failure is an impediment to the crafting of environmental policy that can escape policy lock in sustainability requires a policy process that can avoid this lock in sustainability concerns the creation of dynamic human processes that can respond to indeed anticipate unanticipated feedback from biological processes

the ecological footprint communicating human dependence on nature s work modern food production is a complex globalized system in which what we eat and how it is produced are increasingly disconnected this thesis examines some of the ways in which global trade has changed the mix of inputs to food and feed and how this affects food security and our perceptions of sustainability one useful indicator of the ecological impact of trade in food and feed products is the appropriated ecosystem areas areas which estimates the terrestrial and aquatic areas needed to produce all the inputs to particular products the method is introduced in paper i and used to calculate and track changes in imported subsidies to swedish agriculture over the period 1962 1994 in 1994 swedish consumers needed agricultural areas outside their national borders to satisfy more than a third of their food consumption needs the method is then applied to swedish meat production in paper ii to show that the term made in sweden is often a misnomer in 1999 almost 80 of manufactured feed for swedish pigs cattle and chickens was dependent on imported inputs mainly from europe southeast asia and south america paper iii examines ecosystem subsidies to intensive aquaculture in two nations shrimp production in thailand and salmon production in norway in both countries aquaculture was shown to rely increasingly on imported subsidies the rapid expansion of aquaculture turned these countries from fishmeal net exporters to fishmeal net importers increasingly using inputs from the southeastern pacific ocean as the examined agricultural and aquacultural production systems became globalized levels of dependence on other nations ecosystems the number of external supply sources and the distance to these sources steadily increased dependence on other nations is not problematic as long as we are able to acknowledge these links and sustainably manage resources both at home and abroad however ecosystem subsidies are seldom recognized or made explicit in national policy or economic accounts economic systems are generally not designed to receive feedbacks when the status of remote ecosystems changes much less to respond in an ecologically sensitive manner papers iv and v discuss the problem of masking of the true environmental costs of production for trade one of our conclusions is that while the areas approach is a useful tool for illuminating environmentally based subsidies in the policy arena it does not reflect all of the costs current agricultural and aquacultural production methods have generated substantial increases in production levels but if policy continues to support the focus on yield and production increases alone taking the work of ecosystems for granted vulnerability can result thus a challenge is to develop a set of complementary tools that can be used in economic accounting at national and international scales that address ecosystem support and performance we conclude that future resilience in food production systems will require more explicit links between consumers and the work of supporting ecosystems locally and in other regions of the world and that food security planning will require active management of the capacity of all involved ecosystems to sustain food production

small streams diverse sources who invests in renewable energy in finland during the financial downturn this article addresses the investment gap in renewable energy sources identified by several authors examining the case of a country finland which introduced policy measures to diversify its renewable energy portfolio we analyse the development of investments in renewable heat and power in response to new policy measures and contextual factors during the downturn period 2009 2013 we investigate investor heterogeneity i e the diversity of logics employed by different types of res investors in spite of a severe financial recession we find an emergence of new sources of investment among these new investor types we find diversity in investment drivers and available options these include investors mobilized by the feed in tariff to seek profitable targets and investors such as real estate owners investing in heat pumps for their own use and benefiting from low interest rates we find that the diversification of investors supports the diversification in res sources and brings in new investors undeterred by the financial downturn our findings imply that policy makers should recognize that the responses to distinct incentives and pressures vary by investor types this also means that a mix of policies is required to maximize the contribution of different sectors to filling the renewable energy investment gap

evaluating projects and assessing sustainable development in imperfect economies we are interested in three related questions 1 how should accounting prices be estimated 2 how should we evaluate policy change in an imperfect economy 3 how can we check whether intergenerational well being will be sustained along a projected economic programme we do not presume that the economy is convex nor do we assume that the government optimizes on behalf of its citizens we show that the same set of accounting prices should be used both for policy evaluation and for assessing whether or not intergenerational welfare along a given economic path will be sustained we also show that a comprehensive measure of wealth computed in terms of the accounting prices can be used as an index for problems 2 and 3 above the remainder of the paper is concerned with rules for estimating the accounting prices of several specific environmental natural resources transacted in a few well known economic institutions

creating physical environmental asset accounts from markets for ecosystem conservation abstract recent developments in economics make it possible to design and create markets in sectors of the economy where they have previously been missing or inefficient although of interest from an economic efficiency perspective market based approaches to environmental management also reveal information and valuations that could have a role in environmental accounting using data from a pilot involving the creation of a market auction for conservation contracts we demonstrate a methodology to calculate the contribution of purchased ecosystem services to gdp and create selected physical environmental asset accounts consistent with the system of integrated environmental and economic accounts the paper also examines the role this information might play in developing monetary valuations for environmental assets

hedonic prices demands for urban housing amenities and benefit estimates abstract this paper uses a rosen two step hedonic price trait demand approach to estimate demand functions for a vector of urban amenities to ascertain whether this theoretically preferred approach yields benefit estimates which differ from the oft used ridker henning one step hedonic approach we conduct a sensitivity analysis we find that the two step approach does yield different benefit estimates and that the differences are large for some amenities the estimates are sensitive to the functional form of the hedonic equation when the forms are significantly different according to modified box cox results but are not particularly sensitive to specification of the amenity demand equation

international and domestic pressures and responses of chinese firms to greening abstract organizational responses to international and domestic institutional pressures may help proactive corporate environmental practices and routines diffuse to chinese organizations who are key participants in global product chains using the 2006 survey data on 377 chinese manufacturers in six major industrial groups in suzhou dalian and tianjin cities we propose and test a relationship between normative coercive and mimetic international institutional pressures and the adoption of three important proactive corporate environmental practices routines iso 14001 tqem total quality environmental management and eco auditing by chinese firms we also argue for and find that this relationship is greater than that arising from corresponding normative coercive and mimetic internal domestic pressures finally we find a positive effect of international parenting or partnering on the adoption of proactive corporate environmental practices and routines these findings have important implications as chinese organizations continue to go global and international organizations seek global product supply chain partners within china

macroeconomic narratives in a world of crises an analysis of stories about solving the system crisis since the financial crisis in 2008 a series of publications on macroeconomic responses to the compound crises of the economy and the environment have emerged under labels such as green new deal green growth and the great transition attempts at offering coherent responses to the crises have been made these responses have in common that they all present a large number of policy proposals for ways in which to solve the current crises and achieve a sustainable economy this article provides a mapping of a selection of such responses and an analysis of their content the analysis combines discourse theory and narrative analysis and investigates discourses by studying the narratives they produce the study thus contributes to the long line of analyses on discourses on sustainable economy empirically by investigating and analysing a number of macroeconomic proposals for solving the system crisis and theoretically by elaborating on the concept of narrative dynamics in relation to persuasive strength in political decision making

nonlinear budget constraints and consumer demand an application to public programs for residential housing abstract this study presents a methodology for exploiting the nonlinear hedonic nature of housing prices to estimate the compensated demands of households for particular housing attributes the methodology is employed to provide hicksian benefit measures of a particular housing subsidy program typical of those undertaken recently in developing countries

evaluating the relationships among economic growth energy consumption air emissions and air environmental protection investment in china abstract this paper analyzed the interactions among china s economic growth and its energy consumption air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000 2007 conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions impact respectively the five indicators based on money energy and emergy including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy rnr energy use per unit gdp eupg environmental cost per unit gdp ecpg impact of emissions per unit energy consumption iepec and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment ebpei are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment the results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with china s fast economic growth however energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate impact of air emissions mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health especially dust is slightly decreased the performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period generally speaking the conflict among economy energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of china s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures finally this paper discusses the corresponding issues and then puts forward some related suggestions

export subsidies and countervailing tariffs this paper analyses how retaliation affects the profit shifting argument for export subsidies at the first stage the foreign country sets its export subsidy and then at the second stage the domestic country sets its tariff and or production subsidy it is shown that if the domestic country pursues an optimal trade policy then it will always gain from a foreign export subsidy when the domestic country uses a tariff and a production subsidy the optimal foreign policy is an export subsidy but if the domestic country only uses a tariff then an export tax is usually the optimal policy

water accounting in australia abstract this paper introduces water accounting as produced by the australian bureau of statistics abs it provides information about the abs water accounts and highlights the many other organisations involved in the provision and use of water related data in australia the abs water accounts have built upon previous reports on australian water resources and the system of environment and economic accounting un united nations 2003 draft handbook integrated environmental and economic accounting studies in methods series f no 61 rev 1 united nations european commission international monetary fund organisation for economic cooperation and development world bank new york information from the abs water accounts is presented along with examples of their use in economic analyses designed to inform public debate and government decision makers a key feature of the australian environment is that water is relatively scarce when compared with other inhabited continents rainfall displays a high level of spatial and temporal variability and droughts are common in 2004 an intergovernmental agreement on a national water initiative nwi was reached by australia s national and eight state and territory governments the nwi aims to address environmental economic and social concerns about the current and future state of australia s water resources the nwi specifically calls for the preparation of annual water accounts which clearly indicates the expected usefulness of national and regional water accounts

a consumption based approach to environmental kuznets curves using the ecological footprint indicator recent research suggests that consumption based measures offer an insightful perspective on the debate on the relationship between economic growth and the environment in this article we deepen the

an analysis of the demand for housing attributes this paper uses a two step approach to estimate a system of structural demand equations for housing attributes estimation of a hedonic price regression in the first step yields implicit prices for housing attributes for the toronto metropolitan area in 1978 which are then used to estimate the expenditure share equations derived from the indirect translog utility function empirical results indicate that the composite housing attributes used in the second stage model are own price elastic while an examination of cross price relationships reveals that these attributes are reasonably substitutable

international r d rivalry and industrial strategy this paper presents a theory of government intervention which provides an explanation for industrial strategy policies such as r d or export subsidies in imperfectly competitive international markets domestic net welfare is improved by the capture of a greater share of the output of rent earning industries although the subsidy ridden noncooperative international equilibrium is jointly suboptimal behaviour of governments and firms is modelled as a three stage subgame perfect nash equilibrium the assumption that the government is the first player in this game allows it to influence equilibrium outcomes by altering the set of credible actions open to firms

renewable non renewable energy consumption economic growth trade openness and ecological footprint evidence from organisation for economic co operation and development countries the purpose of this study is to examine the validity of environmental kuznets curve hypothesis for ecological footprint with the role of renewable energy use non renewable energy use and trade openness in 24 organisation for economic co operation and development countries for this purpose we investigate the period from 1980 to 2014 using with second generation panel data methodologies which allow to cross sectional dependence among countries the group mean results show that the inverted u shaped environmental kuznets curve hypothesis does not hold in organisation for economic co operation and development countries because we found the u shaped relationship between economic growth and ecological footprint in addition it is concluded that increasing renewable energy consumption reduces ecological footprint and increasing non renewable energy consumption increases environmental degradation

what to show on the wine labels a hedonic analysis of price drivers of sicilian wines unlike previous literature we construct a hedonic model of wine price that incorporates all the main categories of variables simultaneously to enable a better evaluation of their importance on wine price formation a comprehensive model has the advantage of providing more reliable estimates of the attributes implicit prices thereby facilitating firms pricing and improving effectiveness of wine production and marketing decisions we utilize two different datasets of sicilian wines collecting data from influential wine guides our results suggest that wine price strongly depends on objective features such as vintage alcoholic content geographical origin grape variety producer size and cellaring potential in addition use of containers like tonneaux and barrique positively affects prices whereas use of concrete containers has a negative influence no univocal indications emerge with regard to the effect of the type of company type of viticulture and firm age as for sensorial characteristics our a

the seea based integrated economic environmental modelling framework an illustration with guatemala s forest and fuelwood sector this paper develops and operationalizes the integrated economic environmental modelling ieem platform which integrates environmental data organized under the first international system of environmental economic accounting with a powerful dynamic economy wide modelling approach ieem enables the ex ante economic analysis of policies on the economy and the environment in a quantitative comprehensive and consistent framework ieem elucidates the two way interrelationships between the economy and environment considering how economic activities depend on the environment as a source of inputs and as a sink for their outputs in addition to standard economic impact indicators such as gross domestic product income and employment ieem generates indicators that describe policy impacts on the use of environmental resources wealth and environmental quality which together determine prospects for future economic growth and well being to illustrate the analytical capabilities of ieem the model is calibrated with guatemala s seea and applied to analysis of its forest and fuelwood sector where negative health and environmental impacts arise from inefficient fuelwood use

the effects of a new subway line on housing prices in metropolitan toronto an analysis by means of using the estimation results of a modal choice model and the hedonic price regressions model is conducted in order to identify the effects of a subway line in toronto on the values of housing units the modal choice model is used for the estimation of the direct benefits from the improvement in transportation and the hedonic price equations for the identification of subway effects on housing prices empirical results indicate that the direct savings in commuting costs have been capitalized into housing values

the economic growth enigma revisited the eu 15 since the 1970s abstract current macro econometric models mostly incorporate just two factors of production labour and capital with a time dependent multiplier representing technological change or total factor productivity these models assume that energy is an intermediate product of some combination of human labour and capital these models also assume that the supply of energy is driven by economic demand we assume the contrary i e that useful energy is a primary input derived mostly from natural capital this failure to capture the impact of primary resources as useful energy on economic growth leads to inappropriate formulation of economic growth theories to understand that impact better we need explicit evidence of marginal products of capital labour and useful energy or useful work as applied to the explanation of the past half century of economic growth of the eu 15 countries the new results demonstrate the use of non parametric relationships between capital labour and useful energy to explain economic growth they also indicate that marginal products of capital labour and useful energy are variable the marginal product depends on the levels of capital stock labour input and useful energy flows the proposed semi parametric production function suggests country specific policy implications for the eu and other countries

why can t countervailing duties deter export subsidization abstract this paper shows that in a duopoly model of international market competition threatened imposition of countervailing duties by a domestic country generally deters a foreign country from subsidizing its exports to the former to explain the coexistence of export subsidization and the gatt conform countervailing duty measures factors such as delay in retaliation the gatt constraint on the amount of countervailing duties and voluntary export restraints must be considered we find that these factors lessen the efficacy of countervailing duty retaliation and therefore fail to deter export subsidization