integrating methods for ecosystem service assessment and valuation mixed methods or mixed messages a mixed method approach was used to assess and value the ecosystem services derived from the dogger bank an extensive shallow sandbank in the southern north sea three parallel studies were undertaken that 1 identified and quantified where possible how indicators for ecosystem service provision may change according to two future scenarios 2 assessed members of the public s willingness to pay for improvements to a small number of ecosystem services as a consequence of a hypothetical management plan and 3 facilitated a process of deliberation that allowed members of the public to explore the uses of the dogger bank and the conflicts and dilemmas involved in its management each of these studies was designed to answer different and specific research questions and therefore contributes different insights about the ecosystem services delivered by the dogger bank this paper explores what can be gained by bringing these findings together post hoc and the extent to which the different methods are complementary findings suggest that mixed method research brings more understanding than can be gained from the individual approaches alone nevertheless the choice of methods used and how these methods are implemented strongly affects the results obtained

complementarity of socio economic and emergy evaluation of agricultural production systems the case of slovenian dairy sector agriculture is a complex system in which the economic principles of production are directly intertwined with its biological and ecological characteristics the paper investigates synergetic potentials of multiple criteria and multiple perspective evaluation of agricultural activity through a study of the dairy sector in slovenia socio economic and emergy evaluation was performed on nine farm types formulated to represent the diversity of the country s dairy sector the results indicate larger discrepancies in the performance of the farm types when defined by socio economic or emergy based indicators standard socio economic evaluation favours larger conventional systems that are cost efficient and financially independent emergy analysis however favours less productive organic farms which show greater ability to exploit free local resources and produce less stress on the local environment socio economic and emergy indicators show that small conventional farm types are the poorest performers overall analysis of emergy flows reveals for all farm types a high dependency on the wider socio economic system suggesting that within the current economic system agriculture itself has little ability to affect its sustainability the paper suggests a complementarity in the evaluation approaches their joint application can improve the quality of the decision making process in various stages of planning in agriculture and land use

applied fairness theory comment william baumol 1982 presented a provocative and potentially valuable piece of analysis on fairness but his contribution suffers from the flaw of defining terms in a manner similar to but with important differences from their common definitions as a result of this terminological problem it would be possible for a real world outcome to be fair or even superfair according to baumol s criteria but to be unfair according to the commonly accepted meaning of the word conversely what would commonly be accepted as fair in the real world might not be fair according to baumol s criteria my objection here is largely with baumol s terminology but its significance extends well beyond terminology because it affects the way economists think about equity issues ranging from the particular case of fairness theory to welfare economics in general the remarks that follow fall into two categories first i argue that it is unfair in the traditional meaning of the word for baumol to redefine the meaning of fair second i argue that fair outcomes can only be judged within the context of the institutional setting that produces the outcomes as a result any analysis like baumol s which examines only the outcome of a process without examining the process itself can never determine whether an outcome is fair

valuation of the ecosystem services a psycho cultural perspective abstract valuation of ecosystems services has been a challenging issue for economists there is a growing concern to capture the total and incremental changes in services of different types of ecosystems mainly due to perturbations arising from anthropogenic activities market based valuation techniques have long been declared inadequate and a constructed market method such as the contingent valuation method albeit a robust tool does not seem to capture the expanse nuances and intricacies of many of the ecosystem services the paper attempts to address the lacunae in valuation of ecosystem services from a psychological perspective by arguing that the common person s perception of the ecosystem is quite different from what is conceptualized by conventional economists the paper shows how the ecological identity of individuals is revealed at various levels of the decision making hierarchy that is from local to regional and further onto a global level the paper builds upon insights from psychoanalytic psychology and environmental psychology further it outlines recent research findings from experimental psychology to redefine concepts such as ecological identity self other dichotomy and the fostering of identification with nature as issues that must be embraced in the valuation of ecosystem services extending the idea of relational goods and reciprocity the paper offers a deconstructed view of market forces and furthers the idea of interdisciplinary collaboration and cooperation in the valuation of ecosystem services in this perspective the dichotomy and schism between markets missing markets and non markets gets renovated and reconstructed beyond a utilitarian discourse

valuation of ecosystem goods and services part 1 an integrated dynamic approach abstract this is the first part of a two part paper which offers a new approach to the valuation of ecosystem goods and services the existing literature on environmental valuation is based on two distinct foundations the ecological valuation methods derive values by a cost of production approach their common characteristic is the neglect of consumer preferences the economic valuation methods focus on the exchange value of ecosystem services their common characteristic is that they are finally based on consumer preferences and do not adequately take account of the complex internal structure of ecosystems as the existing methods for the valuation of ecosystem services emphasize either the economic system or the ecosystem the main objective of part 1 is to provide the conceptual foundations for a new method of valuation of ecosystem services which deals simultaneously with the ecosystem the economic system and society in a balanced way within a simple pre industrial model it is shown how the interdependencies between the three subsystems influence values and how values change over time

sustainability as opportunity this paper explores the relationship between sustainability concepts and contractarian principles of distributional fairness a commitment to equality of opportunity between contemporaries entails that life opportunities should be nondiminishing from generation to generation defining sustainability as nondeclining utility is analytically suggestive but practically problematic given the uncertainties that surround future preferences and technologies life opportunities may be sustained however by providing future generations with specific endowments of reproduced capital technological capacity natural resources and environmental quality in this setting capital resource substitutions are defensible only if there is compelling evidence that they would benefit both present and future generations

alternative models of individual behaviour and implications for environmental policy abstract most insights of environmental economics are in line with the standard neoclassical economic model of rational behaviour formulated in terms of maximization of utility in general or of profits in particular the standard theory of environmental policy is a case in point however the maximization hypothesis and its methodological foundation have been criticized on many grounds related to a lack of either logical or empirical content moreover over the years a great many alternative models of behaviour have been proposed both criticism and alternatives are surveyed here attention is devoted to relevant insights from the philosophy of science the notion of methodological individualism and other criticism the alternative behavioural models include bounded rationality and satisficing lexicographic preferences habitual behaviour incommensurability and multicriteria evaluation and various models of behaviour under uncertainty major implications of the criticism and alternative models of individual behaviour for environmental policy theory are outlined

on the use of ecological prices and system wide indicators derived therefrom to quantify man s impact on the ecosystem abstract ecological prices and other system wide quantitative descriptors of ecosystem functioning are derived from the assumption that ecosystems allocate available resources efficiently among their components however ecological prices are not efficiency prices only and using them does not require one to assume that the ecosystem is completely controlled by man the same prices balance flows of different biomasses in a multicomponent system as such they play the role of exchange prices in a decentralized ecosystem properly defined with the help of ecological prices the resulting ecosystem productivity is no less a significant indicator of ecosystem functioning than the national product is significant for assessing the functioning of an economy considerations of the values taken simultaneously by our proposed indicators and by their economic analogs are of much help in judging the desirability of projects with relatively mild environmental repercussions these values are obtained from an integrated model of a system in which ecological and economic activities are intertwined however for the indicators to have an analytical meaning the methodology should be applied to trace only those dynamic paths during which the system possesses unique state dependent intensive properties in other cases a more comprehensive methodology one which also pays due regard to the viability of the ecosystem must supplement the analytical approach this rather comprehensive methodology is scale dependent and probabilistic in nature while delineating relations between the structure of the system and its behavior this method implies that efficiency and viability are two complementary rather than two commensurate attributes of a single entity an outside observer may be guided by his own values in his attempts to weigh these features but no inherent property of the system exists that supports his values unequivocally nevertheless this paper proposes an approximation to overcome this difficulty and to estimate a quantitative limit to the rate of substitution between productivity and viability such a limit is also an intensive property of the simulated system and the estimation of its value is shown to be crucial for studying the vulnerability of real ecosystems to severe man made disturbances

do focus groups and individual interviews reveal the same information for natural resource valuation abstract focus groups and individual interviews have become accepted methods used in the initial stages of valuation research whether focus groups and individual interviews reveal similar valuation information has not been thoroughly studied the research tests the hypothesis that focus groups yield the same ecosystem service information as do individual interviews the research also explores how the focus group and individual interview data might differ the analysis shows that focus groups and individual interviews are not substitutes they yield different information about ecosystem services and resource uses

multiattribute elicitation of wilderness preservation benefits a constructive approach abstract this paper contributes to the development of a constructive approach to evaluating environmental resources using a version of multiattribute value elicitation in a group setting section 1 discusses the assumptions and practices of group multiattribute elicitation for public policy decisions the good of interest is a potential doubling of designated wilderness areas in british columbia two groups totalling 28 subjects participated in intensive half day workshops in which they provided judgments regarding the amounts of tax revenues from forest industry activities each thought provincial residents should forego to achieve specified increases in wilderness preservation subjects were asked to consider direct and passive use values spiritual values and ecological service values subjects were also asked to consider separately the interests of the current generation and future generations of residents and to provide judgments regarding the marginal benefits of increasing preservation an initial aggregated valuation question was followed by five more disaggregated questions subjects then compared and reconciled their value judgments for the aggregated and disaggregated questions the results are generally comparable to those of a contingent valuation referendum based survey for the same valuation issues

the value base of water governance a multi disciplinary perspective some scholars promote water governance as a normative concept to improve water resources management globally while others conceive of it as an analytical term to describe the processes systems and institutions around the management of water resources and water supply critics often highlight how specific water governance scenarios fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes such as social justice or environmental sustainability while water governance is often perceived as a technical matter its conceptual and practical components are in fact based on multiple values that nonetheless often remain implicit the present paper seeks to uncover this value base and discusses existing research on values from multiple perspectives using material from economics philosophy psychology and other social sciences in different disciplines values can be understood as fundamental guiding principles governance related values or as values assigned to water resources together they shape complex relationships with water governance which from an analytical perspective is understood as a combination of policy politics and polity introducing a new conceptual framework this study seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for empirical research on water governance processes and conflicts

setting the limits to extraction a biophysical approach to mining activities abstract while the mining industry is steadfastly committed to the goal of increasing extraction of minerals the failure to recognize the existence of biophysical constraints to extraction results in massive degradation to socio ecological systems in this paper we propose an innovative approach for analyzing mineral extraction which links the use and management of natural resources by means of the stock flow fund service model developed by georgescu roegen mining is a productive process that not only depletes minerals ores but also affects other natural resources that are needed to maintain life supporting processes over time the central claim is the need of recognizing the existence of biophysical limits to extraction in order to manage natural resources as irreplaceable providers of ecosystem services by providing a new conceptualization for operationalizing the ecosystem services approach based on the stock flow fund service model we intend to challenge the current extractivist narrative that assumes unregulated practices monetary indicators technological advancements and substitutable resources we argue that limits to mining activities should depend on a biophysical evaluation of the effects of these activities on the environment furthermore social deliberation is required to determine whether extraction should occur and to what extent it is socially acceptable while still maintaining the integrity of socio ecological systems

the foundations of trust macro and micro this comment on beugelsdijk s 2006 critique of trust and its measurement argues that it misses the mark and that there is neither a theoretical nor an empirical foundation for thinking that the macro and micro foundations of trust or its measurement are different from each other generalised trust is more than a simple illusion hiding behind institutional structures

commensuration and theories of value in ecological economics abstract without a theory of value price in ecological economics the valuation of ecosystem and economic resources cannot be rigorously defended at the crux of the matter is the valuation or mixed units problem of commensurating biophysical inputs outputs which are different this paper critically reviews candidate theories of value which have emerged in the ecological economics literature for dealing with this problem first of all the neo ricardian approach using sraffa type systems is discussed in particular judson s assertion that the sraffa system is suitable for ecological economics is questioned as it is based on circular flow generation of a surplus and exchange values none of these ideas are consistent with a biophysical characterisation of an economic system which is paramount in ecological economics a more fruitful avenue for establishing a biophysical theory of value based on ecological and thermodynamic principles is to extend patterson s quality equivalent methodology qem to explicitly include mass flows in addition to energy at this point a model close to costanza and hannon s biosphere model of price determination emerges the extended qem model however has a number of important advantages over the costanza hannon model because it has a more generalised formulation and is not reliant on necessarily using solar energy as the numeraire the paper concludes with a discussion of some outstanding issues that need to be resolved before a biophysical theory of value can be properly established in ecological economics

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

a social and environmental approach to microfinance credit scoring microfinance institutions provide loans to low income individuals their credit scoring systems if they exist are strictly financial although many institutions consider the social and environmental impact of their loans they do not incorporate formal systems to estimate these social and environmental impacts this paper proposes that their creditworthiness evaluations should be coherent with their social mission and accordingly should estimate the social and environmental impact of microcredit thus a decision support system to facilitate microcredit granting is proposed using a multicriteria evaluation the assessment of social impact is performed by calculating the social net present value the system captures credit officers experience and addresses incomplete and intangible information the model has been tested in a microfinance institution the paper shows how a small institution can include social and environmental issues in its decision making systems to evaluate credit applications a gap in the preferences was found between members of the board who are socially driven and managers and credit officers who are financially drifted this mission drift was corrected the approach followed contributed to creating a culture of social and environmental assessment within the institution especially among credit officers thereby translating microfinance institutions social mission into numbers

uncovering resource losses and gains in china s foreign trade abstract natural resource storages and flows play an important role in economic and social processes in this paper we explore the trade of primary commodities between china and its main trade partners during the years 2000 and 2008 emergy accounting is used to assess the environmental support associated with the resources exchanged mass emergy and financial capital export to import ratios confirm that economy level trade advantages should not just rely on capital flow a holistic evaluation of the trade process including resource environmental value should be performed to identify trade balance and stability results show that while china s imports monetary value is much larger than exports monetary value china receives more emergy environmental support in trade than it gives benefiting from the ability of primary resources to drive its economy developed economies characterized by a low emergy to money ratio gain more from trade of primary commodities with china developing and underdeveloped economies with higher emergy to money ratio lose in the environmental support balance to china indicating the existence of a potentially unsustainable trade imbalance

discourse based valuation of ecosystem services establishing fair outcomes through group deliberation discourse based methods involving small groups of citizens have yet to be thoroughly engaged in the practice of ecosystem valuation this remains true despite the fact that many ecosystem goods and services such as clean air biodiversity and unpolluted lakes and rivers are considered to be public goods the conventional application of ecosystem valuation relies heavily on methodologies such as contingent valuation in which individuals are asked to express the value they attach to ecosystem goods and services in social isolation the difference between the public nature of ecosystem services and their valuation through individual expression has thus recently led to calls for more deliberative forms of environmental valuation because the allocation of ecosystem services directly affects many people and raises normative questions about social equity it is argued that carefully designed discursive methods will help ensure the achievement of social equity goals in this paper we examine the theoretical and normative assumptions that rest beneath the proposed turn towards discourse based methods and identify procedures for testing their application in the field 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

social ecology sustainability and economics article i nfo what mode of analysis might be employed that captures the confluent action of material and social systems acting together the framework of social ecology which first emerged as a rejoinder to the chicago school of human ecology of the early 1900s evolved over subsequent decades as an attempt at such integration we revisit social ecology s historical origins and foundational assumptions we propose that the social ecological framework can offer useful conceptual grounding to scholars of ecological economics we illustrate how this analytical lens affords a deeper understanding of unsustainable systems and valuation problems

the epistemological challenge of self modifying systems governance and sustainability in the post normal science era abstract in this paper we conceptualize the difference among risk uncertainty and ignorance and focus on a theoretical analysis of modeling relation applied to self modifying systems within the framework of post normal science we provide an overview of the concept of risk and uncertainty elaborating on the work of f knight we extend r rosen s theory of modeling relation originally aimed in natural science to the issue of science for governance knight s analysis of risk and uncertainty can be used to generate a list of various types of uncertainty involved in every stage to model self modifying systems such a list is relevant for gaining insight into the issue of science for governance it is important for those attempting to model sustainability especially in the field of ecological economics to be aware of the theoretical difference between models and similes for self modifying systems

quantification of interdependencies between economic systems and ecosystem services an input output model applied to the seine estuary abstract the aim of this paper is to assess the possible contribution of an input output model towards two of the basic principles of the sustainability strategy of integrated coastal zone management iczm and post normal science according to these principles decision support tools should offer a holistic perspective and handle high uncertainty the difficulties in reaching sustainability are due partly to the prevailing use of narrow system boundary tools that are non holistic consequently they fail to capture important ecosystem services and ignore interdependencies between them to comply with the basic principles our method allows environmental assets to be evaluated in multiple units and integrates results from recent researches in natural sciences both enable coverage of interdependencies between ecosystem services thereby we enlarge input output modelling from the two conventional ecosystem services of sink and provisioning to the most vital ones the supporting services an application to the seine estuary addresses the impacts of maritime transportation infrastructures on nursery habitats for commercial fish the ecosystem services covered are life support and resource provisioning our results show that the restoration of a total of 73 7 km 2 of nursery areas over the period 2004 2015 would result in a stock of sole in 2015 that exceeds the business as usual scenario by 44 2 uncertainty range 35 9 69 9 in spite of high restoration costs the negative macro economic impact is very low however on the sector level a trade off results between nurseries and three economic sectors the quantification of such trade offs in our model is particularly useful to public participation in decision making

on the intergenerational allocation of natural resources it is known hartwick and others that under standard assumptions a society that invests in reproducible capital the competitive rents on its current extraction of exhaustible resources will enjoy a consumption stream constant in time it is shown here that this result can be interpreted as saying that an appropriately defined stock of capital including the initial endowment of resources is being maintained intact and that consumption can be interpreted as the interest on that patrimony this seems like a useful rule of thumb for policy

beyond gdp an overview of measurement issues in redefining wealth in the last decades a growing quantity of literature has been written about concepts such as quality of life and well being as a proxy for evaluating societal prosperity and progress this paper analyses the theoretical foundations and the empirical validity of multi dimensional technical tools that can be used for well being measurement there is no doubt that there is a lot of complexity and fuzziness inherent in multi dimensional concepts such as well being a possible reduction of this complexity a pre condition for policy making introduces the problem of the descriptors used indicators and indexes in a multi dimensional framework multi criteria evaluation is a consistent approach for the construction of so called composite indicators often some individual indicators improve while others deteriorate this is the classical conflictual situation dealt with in multi criteria evaluation in particular non compensatory methods are quite relevant since compensability implies complete substitutability between different types of capital uncertainty and sensitivity analysis can estimate the robustness of the results obtained and help the framing of the debate around the conceptual framework used that is which representation of reality and thus which societal values and interests has been considered

who trusts others community and individual determinants of social capital in a low income country this study presents new evidence on individual and community specific determinants of social trust using data from 96 villages in bangladesh we find perceived institutional trust to be positively correlated with stated inter personal trust at the same time there is significant social distance among various faith groups in our data both hindus and muslims trust their coreligionists more than they trust those from other religions moreover hindus trust christians buddhists and ngo workers more than muslims and are not distrustful of the wider society trust towards non muslims is negatively correlated with islamic school attendance among muslim respondents while religiosity tends not to play any role compared to religion the effects of institutional trust and local economic development are modest these findings are robust to control for a range of individual and community level correlates and enumerator fixed effects

policy incentives for switchgrass production using valuation of non market ecosystem services abstract this study presents a linear profit model with combined economic and environmental factors for a switchgrass for biofuels agricultural system in the southeastern u s the objectives are to establish conversion to switchgrass thresholds for various market prices and identify policy incentives that would ensure economic profit while also maximizing environmental benefits carbon sequestration displacement of fossil fuels and minimizing negative impacts global warming potential nitrate loss weighting factors are chosen to represent incentives and penalties by assigning value to the impacts with no other incentives switchgrass market prices of at least 51 and 58 dton would be needed in order to make a profitable switch from corn conservation reserve program crp lands and cotton respectively at a mid range offering of 50 dton feasible carbon credit prices of 3 8 23 per metric tonne co 2 e would incentivize conversion from corn crp or cotton respectively similarly a water quality penalty of 0 20 3 2 per kilogram no 3 n leached would incentivize the same conversions with resultant watershed improvement at a lower price of 30 dton switchgrass incentives based on valuation of ecosystem services begin to exceed feasible ranges of these valuations

non compensatory non linear composite indicators for ranking countries a defensible setting composite indicators or indexes are very common in economic and business statistics for benchmarking the mutual and relative progress of countries in a variety of policy domains such as industrial competitiveness sustainable development globalization and innovation the proliferation of the production of composite indicators by all the major international organizations is a clear symptom of their political importance and operational relevance in policy making as a consequence improvements in the way these indicators are constructed and used seem to be a very important research issue from both the theoretical and operational points of view this article aims at contributing to the improvement of the overall quality of composite indicators or indexes by looking at one of their technical weaknesses that is the aggregation convention used for their construction for this aim we build upon concepts coming from multi criteria decision analysis measurement theory and social choice we start from the

an alternative approach to monetary aggregation in dea this paper proposes a set of alternative dea based money indices that are proved to be both theoretically and empirically competing monetary aggregates since they perform as good as the divisia aggregates based on all the results concerning causality forecasting and money demand we conclude that dea money aggregates prove to be at least competing alternatives to the divisia aggregates and hence suggest that these new aggregates may be considered along with the existing weighted monetary aggregates like the divisia ones given the inherent benefit of the doubt weighting mechanism underlying the dea models where the optimal weight assigned by dea to each monetary asset reflects the ongoing financial innovation and the reserve bank of india s policy priority in the distribution of total liquidity we feel that the dea money indices can truly capture the liquidity better with ongoing financial innovations in the economy

social multi criteria evaluation methodological foundations and operational consequences in order to address contemporary issues economics and decision sciences need to expand their empirical relevance by introducing more and more realistic thus more complex assumptions in their models one of the most interesting research directions in the field of public economics is the attempt to introduce political constraints interest groups and collusion effects explicitly j j laffont incentives and political economy 2000 the main argument developed here is the proposal of the concept of social multi criteria evaluation smce as a possible useful framework for the application of social choice to the difficult policy problems of our millennium where as stated by funtowicz and ravetz facts are uncertain values in dispute stakes high and decisions urgent this paper starts from the following main questions 1 why social multi criteria evaluation 2 how should such an approach be developed the foundations of smce are set up by referring to concepts from complex system theory and philosophy such as reflexive complexity post normal science and incommensurability to give some operational guidelines on the application of smce basic questions to be answered are 1 how is it possible to deal with technical incommensurability 2 how can we deal with the issue of social incommensurability to answer these questions using theoretical considerations and lessons learned from real world case studies is the main objective of the present article

a participatory approach to sustainable energy strategy development in a carbon intensive jurisdiction the case of nova scotia the need for governments to reduce the exposure of energy consumers to future increases in fossil fuel prices places urgent pressure on policy makers to deliver fundamental transformations in energy strategies particularly in jurisdictions with high dependency on fossil fuel sources dorian et al 2006 this transformation is unlikely without a high level of stakeholder engagement in the policy development process this paper describes two policy development processes recently undertaken in nova scotia in which the inclusion of stakeholder views was central to the approach the first delivered a new institutional framework for electricity energy efficiency involving the inception of an independent performance based administrator the second required the delivery of a strategy to significantly increase renewable energy generation in the province it involved recommendations for changes in institutional arrangements financial incentives and technological options this process was followed by new commitments to renewable energy developments new infrastructure for the importation of hydro electricity and the announcement of fits for ocean energy in both cases recommendations were made by an independent academic institution and the government responded directly to a majority of recommendations the paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and the implications for future energy policy making in carbon intensive jurisdictions

the challenge of measuring biofuel sustainability a stakeholder driven approach applied to the french case measuring biofuel sustainability requires dealing with a wide variety of complex and conflicting values at stake consequently the biofuel capacity to contribute to one specific value cannot lead to any absolute conclusion about the overall sustainability of biofuel the scope of the sustainability concept may vary depending on individuals preferences the time scale and the geographical region based on the 5 pillars sustainability concept that includes social economic environmental legal and cultural considerations the present study proposes to assess several biofuel sustainability options for france by 2030 through a stakeholder driven approach rather than seeking to reach a consensus our approach allows us to capture the wide diversity of stakeholders perspectives and preferences french stakeholders perceive 22 different sustainability criteria for biofuels with a very low level of agreement between the different segments of professions feedstock producers biofuel producers refining industry fuel distributors car manufacturers end users government and ngos in order to operationalize the sustainability assessment a set of indicators has been identified with stakeholders that allows us to measure the capacity of biofuels to fulfill each of their criteria seventeen biofuel options were assessed with regards to economic social environmental cultural and legal considerations allowing the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of each biofuel

the convergence of neo ricardian and embodied energy theories of value and price abstract the concepts of embodied energy entropy and the like have made limited inroads into orthodox economic thought ecological economists however have been developing a coherent theoretical perspective to be considered with and or against orthodox economics this paper focuses on the classical economic implications of the embodied energy theory of value it is argued that the embodied energy theory of value is very similar to neo ricardian economics after examining the issues separating classical and neoclassical economics the paper makes a beginning theoretical integration between these two theories finally several suggestions for theoretical development of embodied energy theory and for the empirical testing of the theory are made

a continuous state space approach to convergence by parts abstract using a continuous state space approach this note extends feyrer s feyrer j 2003 convergence by parts manuscript dartmouth college available at http www dartmouth edu jfeyrer parts pdf study of the proximate determinants of the shape of the long run distribution of income per capita contrary to feyrer s finding of the primacy of total factor productivity tfp the results here imply that traps in both tfp growth and capital accumulation may matter

ecological pricing and transformity a solution method for systems rarely at general equilibrium abstract this paper outlines a new method for determining ecological prices transformities in complicated ecological economic systems where non equilibrium prices are likely to be prevalent that is an eigenvalue eigenvector mathematical solution method for solving an overdetermined homogeneous system of simultaneous linear equations is proposed and tested previous mathematical approaches to the problem of ecological pricing are reviewed before proceeding with an explanation of the new solution method for the determination of ecological prices the proposed method seeks to avoid the need to make a number of untenable assumptions used in previous methods e g the assumption that there necessarily needs to be an equal number of processes and quantities in the ecological economic system the paper also provides practical advice and an algorithm for solving the ecological pricing problem for example advice on how to overcome the problem of ill conditioned matrices which are sometimes encountered

environmental economics an evolutionary critique and a plea for pluralism abstract environmental economics is a contradiction in terms the contradiction is intuitive to the puzzled lay person inquiring about the nature of our subdiscipline it is explicit to those who think of environmental systems in terms of complex evolving interconnectedness and identify the economic model with the atomistic and mechanistic assumptions of classical mechanics within the subdiscipline we try to resolve the contradiction by internalizing externalities by matching market feedbacks with environmental relations while acknowledging that insights can be drawn from the market view of environmental problems i argue in this essay that 1 the contradiction is nerver resolved 2 multiple incongruous perspectives are all we have for understanding the interface between economic and environmental systems and 3 environmental economics will thrive with a return to philosophical pluralism to the open acceptance of the contradiction

bringing stakeholder values into environmental policy choices a community based estuary case study this paper discusses a methodology for joining deliberation and analysis using the case study example of a national estuary program planning effort in tillamook bay or usa we describe the development of a community based evaluation tool that links actions proposed by technical experts e g biologists ecologists engineers to restore functioning of the tillamook bay estuary with the values and concerns expressed by community residents this task required the explicit consideration of trade offs across multiple benefits costs and risks we describe the design and results of an evaluation workbook developed with input from both the epa staff and community residents that provided insight to decision makers by presenting participants with explicit choices across the key dimensions and consequences of proposed actions the final section of the paper discusses the successes and limitations of the project in relation to evaluation needs associated with other environmental policy initiatives 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

participative multi criteria analysis for the evaluation of water governance alternatives a case in the costa del sol malaga this paper presents the results of a participatory multi criteria evaluation of urban water supply alternatives in costa del sol occidental in malaga spain multi criteria and social research techniques were combined relying on social actors involvement throughout the research work the paper documents that participatory processes allowed to unveil framings perspectives values and interests as well as understanding of the social and institutional context in which the waters are governed the deployment of this methodological approach has in this case provided an extended diagnosis which was the starting point to explore non a priori foreseen management alternatives by the researchers the methodological approach proved useful for problem structuring in a collective flexible and iterative way unveiling existing water management conflicts and their motivations and improving the quality and effectiveness of the information exchange and the reflection process among social actors even if the whole process developed in a research setting rather than in a policy for real one participatory multi criteria evaluation could in this case contribute to identify policy options that could be better defended before all the social actors including the general public thus attempting to achieve shared ground the paper suggests some methodological considerations for applying participatory multi criteria evaluation based on the outcomes of the case study application

the role of social capital in financial development to identify the effect of social capital on financial development we exploit social capital differences within italy in high social capital areas households are more likely to use checks invest less in cash and more in stock have higher access to institutional credit and make less use of informal credit the effect of social capital is stronger where legal enforcement is weaker and among less educated people these results are not driven by omitted environmental variables since we show that the behavior of movers is still affected by the level of social capital of the province where they were born

eliciting public values for complex policy decisions several approaches exist to illuminate and clarify public values relevant for making public policy decisions these include surveys indirect and direct value elicitation focus groups and public involvement this paper describes a new approach called the public value forum which combines elements of focus groups and direct multiattribute value elicitation techniques two public value forums were conducted with selected members of the west german public to elicit values relevant for setting long term energy policies the purposes of conducting the value forums were to examine the feasibility of eliciting values from laypeople and combining them with factual assessments of experts to determine the extent to which values elicited formally conflict with values elicited informally and to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the public value forum the results indicate that the public value forum is feasible that the participants felt comfortable with the procedure and that they were eager to resolve inconsistencies between their intuitive judgments and the multiattribute models there was substantial conflict between the formally and informally elicited values however the participants were able to resolve those conflicts in the course of the value forum tending towards more moderate alternatives in the process the public value forum provided useful information for the policy process and education for the participants however because it is expensive and time consuming its main application may involve small samples of opinion leaders and stakeholder representatives rather than large representative samples of the general public

applied fairness theory and rationing policy in the past few years several economists notably duncan foley hal varian e a pazner and david schmeidler have produced a novel analytical theory of fairness in the distribution of resources in contradistinction to the efficiency of their allocation this work is primarily philosophical in orientation being concerned primarily with the logical underpinnings of an analysis of fair division rather than with its application here i offer a nontechnical introduction to the subject providing a few new results about the construction but this is only a preliminary to an attempt to show how fairness theory can be used to study policy employing the issue of rationing of commodities as an illustration persons who design public policy are typically at least as concerned with issues of equity as with allocative efficiency the economist s influence is therefore impeded by his inability to deal with issues of fairness in applied problems fairness theory perhaps for the first time provides an analytic instrument for the purpose inevitably it must of course rest upon value judgments as well as observable relationships but what is remarkable about fairness theory is that both the behavioral relationships and the value judgments on which it is based are essentially those used in the standard welfare analysis of resource allocation in both the basic data are consumer preferences and production relationships and in both the basic value judgment is that the desires of the affected individuals rather than those of some superior arbitrator must count our illustrative policy issue the rationing of commodities has reemerged with the fuel problem here i will examine the choice between two points rationing arrangements under which consumers are each issued a fixed number of ration points redeemable at a fixed points price pg per gallon of gasoline or at another coupon price p h per gallon of heating oil etc the consumer is thereby subjected to a second budget constraint expressed in ration points rather than money economists have suggested that the efficiency of such a rationing system can be improved if it is accompanied by a white market in which consumers with unwanted ration coupons can sell them to others at a market clearing money price i will show that while there is a valid efficiency argument favoring the white market arrangement over one in which the sale of ration coupons is prohibited fairness analysis yields a presumption that goes the other way this may provide some justification for the apparently widespread suspicion of the fairness of white markets among noneconomists

income distribution dynamics among italian provinces the role of bank foundations this paper investigates the convergence process and the distribution dynamics of income among italian nuts 3 provinces between 2003 and 2011 findings show the existence of multiple steady state eq

an institutional analysis of methods for environmental appraisal abstract this paper focuses on a set of issues when choosing between methods for environmental appraisal approaches like cost benefit analysis contingent valuation multicriteria analysis and deliberative methods are based on very different assumptions concerning the characteristics of environmental resources the capacities of the individuals involved and the role the methods play in framing the process the present paper views environmental appraisal methods as institutional structures they are seen as rules concerning a who should participate and in which capacity b what is considered data and which form data should take and c rules about how a conclusion is reached specifically the choice of method defines the logic of the appraisal process and next influences the output while cost benefit analysis is based on the assumption of individual rationality deliberative methods assume that individuals can act according to social rationality the first part of the paper is devoted to clarifying what institutions are and their role in the valuation process second the main features of environmental or ecosystem services and the demands they raise for decision making are described a general framework for evaluating appraisal methods is then developed finally this structure is elaborated in more detail as a basis for deciding over the choices of methods in the case of evaluating ecosystem services a set of unresolved issues are identified especially related to how the choice of appraisal methods themselves should be instituted

equity considerations in economic and policy analysis there is little doubt that equity considerations play some role in human decision making this can be seen through statements that we are all created equal or that we have equal rights this can also be seen through some of the transfer mechanisms that societies are willing to put in place for the benefits of the poor or the malnourished in spite of this evidence the role of equity in resource allocation remains poorly understood most economic analyses tend to focus on efficiency issues and avoid addressing distribution issues as argued by sen 1987 1992 as long as human behavior is affected by equity considerations it seems that economics could be made more productive by paying greater attention to welfare distribution at the center of equity is whether and how to distinguish between people in terms of their needs their abilities their contributions and their individual rights people being different at least some of their differences seem to be relevant to the economic evaluation of equity issues at this point it remains somewhat unclear how to approach such issues the current debate about equity has been profoundly influenced by rawls s theory of justice rawls s theory is based on the concept of justice as fairness 1 it relies on a so called original position where individuals do not yet know their exact position in society rawls suggests that a society is just if its current members would find the original position fair rawls s views have been influential yet controversial part of the debate comes in part from some antagonism between equity and rights e g nozick and private property rights are often seen as contributing to inequalities of wealth in modern society the objective of this paper is to explore equity issues with a special focus on interactions between efficiency equity and the role of information in resource allocation in the next

convergence in italian regional per capita gdp this paper addresses the issue of convergence of per capita gdp of the 20 italian regions the paper first focuses on the notion of convergence and proposes a new hierarchical clustering algorithm grouping regions according to the presence of a monotonically decreasing trend in entropy then alternative definitions of long run convergence are given based on the notion of cointegration and common trends and the evidence arising from application of stationarity tests to the time series of regional contrasts is examined the conclusion is that both kind of convergence can be used to characterize the dynamics of regional per capita gdp

aggregation and deliberation in valuing environmental public goods starting from a distinction between kantian principle based and utilitarian preference based approaches in political theory this essay argues that we may understand normative judgments individuals make about policy to express principled views of the public interest or purpose not private preferences about their own consumption opportunities these judgments in other words state opinions about what we ought to do as a society rather than report preferences about what i want as a utility maximizer this essay then argues that contingent valuation can take into account these kinds of judgments which dominate public discourse about the environment only if it moves toward a deliberative discursive jury like research method emphasizing informed discussion leading toward a consensus based on an argument about the public interest

measures of energy cost and value in ecosystems the physical output of ecological processes have different values even though they may be measured in the same physical units using linear input output theory we derive a set of weights based on direct and indirect energy requirements for ecosystem commodities which uniquely converts them into commensurable unit costs under certain conditions these costs are equal to values or prices using this system behavioral theories can be better posed for experimental verification

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

trust between international joint venture partners effects of home countries trust is an important factor in interorganizational relations interorganizational trust in cross border relationships is likely to be influenced by the home countries of both partners using data on 165 international joint ventures ijvs we show that the perceived trustworthiness of an ijv partner is influenced by the general propensity to trust in the trustor s home country moreover the trustworthiness perceived by a focal parent firm is also affected by the home country of the other ijv partner this second effect is mitigated by experience between the partners

degrowth initiatives in the urban water sector a social multi criteria evaluation of non conventional water alternatives in metropolitan barcelona abstract debates on degrowth have mainly focused on theoretical issues specially around the unsustainability of the current economic model based on growth along those lines some scholars have dealt with the opportunities and barriers to voluntary social action for degrowth at a general level notwithstanding the key importance of such debates we argue that local strategies to move towards degrowth are still to be explored departing from the specific case of water in this paper we interrogate the compatibility of non conventional centralised and decentralised water supply technologies desalination reclaimed water reuse greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting with degrowth principles taking as a case study the metropolitan area of barcelona spain a social multi criteria evaluation has been performed to explore the feasibility desirability and acceptability of both models the paper aims to explore the pros and cons of the different water alternatives in two different and hypothetic societies one based on growth business as usual and one based on degrowth the technical analysis reveals that rainwater harvesting and reclaimed water reuse are the most preferred alternatives from a degrowth perspective while reclaimed water reuse and desalination are the most preferred alternatives from a growth perspective the social multi criteria analysis also serves to unveil which social actors may favour or block the adoption of each alternative notwithstanding that most social groups see desalination as the least desired option this is the hegemonic non conventional source in spain which evidences the prevalence of growth discourses in water management local decision makers city council managers and environmental groups clearly opt for the promotion of rainwater harvesting and as a result they appear as potential allies to promote degrowth in water consumption the social multi criteria evaluation helps to elucidate the main challenges that need to be addressed in the pursuit of a more sustainable and equitable water management

the history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice from early notions to markets and payment schemes article i nfo this paper reviews the historic development of the conceptualization of ecosystem services and examines critical landmarks in economic theory and practice with regard to the incorporation of ecosystem services into markets and payment schemes the review presented here suggests that the trend towards monetization and commodification of ecosystem services is partly the result of a slow move from the original economic conception of nature s benefits as use values in classical economics to their conceptualization in terms of exchange values in neoclassical economics the theory and practice of current ecosystem services science are examined inthelight ofthis historicaldevelopment from thisreview we conclude thatthefocus onmonetary valuation and payment schemes has contributed to attract political support for conservation but also to commodify a growing number of ecosystem services and to reproduce the neoclassical economics paradigm and the market logic to tackle environmental problems

how to be an ecological economist abstract to answer the question how to be an ecological economist we must start by defining the field of ecological economics mainstream economics altogether lacks the concepts required to deal adequately with nature justice and time it was the absence of these three concepts in this otherwise great social science that led to the establishment of ecological economics the interest in nature justice and time is its defining characteristic the main thesis of this paper is that our field is a fragile institution and that the professional existence of an ecological economist is no less fragile however this very fragility also represents freedom scope for free thinking conceptualising and research nevertheless to be able to really use and in turn enjoy the full scope of this freedom an ecological economist needs certain specific characteristics in particular what is termed in the german philosophical tradition urteilskraft and in english power of judgement a description of these characteristics is developed in this paper providing an answer to the question how to be an ecological economist

weak comparability of values as a foundation for ecological economics the main argument of this paper is that weak comparability of values should be seen as one characteristic feature of ecological economics the formal properties of the concepts of strong comparability implying strong or weak commensurability and weak comparability implying incommensurability will be clarified multicriteria evaluation offers the methodological and mathematical tools to operationalize the concept of incommensurability at both macro and micro levels of analysis the concept of incommensurability of values already has a long tradition in economics moreover we will show that analytic philosophy theories of complexity post normal science and the recent theories of rationality lead with different trajectories to a non algorithmic approach which in our view could be implemented by some forms of multicriteria evaluation 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

shared wealth or nobody s land the worth of natural capital and ecosystem services the prerequisite for a sustainable and equitable use of common resources the so called commons must be the proper evaluation of their role within the complex network of relationships that ensure ecosystems functioning resilience and evolutionary dynamics it is crucial to ascertain to what extent the common wealth is used for the common benefit money based schemes for valuing the commons such as the so called willingness to pay provide a user side evaluation perspective based on the idea that value only stems from utilization by humans as a complement to such a point of view we present and discuss in this paper a donor side evaluation method emergy synthesis based on the idea that a proper measure of value can be achieved by also accounting for the work done by the biosphere in generating services and resources it should not be disregarded that such resources and services also provide support to other species in the web of life emergy a scientific measure of such environmental support is suggested as a tool capable to assess quantity and quality of shared resources thus providing a basis for their environmentally sound management

a note on the theory and measurement of trust in explaining differences in economic growth this paper takes issue with the trend to attribute differences in economic growth rates to differences in interpersonal trust i discuss the world values survey wvs measure that is used to operationalise trust at the macro level i hypothesise that there is a mismatch between the theoretical argument and the empirical operationalisation of trust instead of measuring trust the wvs measure may instead proxy the well functioning of institutions i provide circumstantial evidence for this thesis by a principal components analysis of trust and institutions and a robustness test of zak and knack s 2001 trust and growth economic journal vol 111 295 321 seminal study on trust and economic growth

developing a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems the potential for biomass to contribute to energy supply in a low carbon economy is well recognised however for the sector to contribute fully to sustainable development in the uk specific exploitation routes must meet the three sets of criteria usually recognised as representing the tests for sustainability economic viability in the market and fiscal framework within which the supply chain operates environmental performance including but not limited to low carbon dioxide emissions over the complete fuel cycle and social acceptability with the benefits of using biomass recognised as outweighing any negative social impacts this paper describes an approach to developing a methodology to establish a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems to provide practical advice for policy makers planners and the bioenergy industry and thus to support policy development and bioenergy deployment at different scales the approach uses multi criteria decision analysis mcda and decision conferencing to explore how such a process is able to integrate and reconcile the interests and concerns of diverse stakeholder groups

five capital impact assessment appraisal framework based on theory of sustainable well being abstract this paper sets out to formulate an appraisal approach in context with sustainable development in conventional project appraisal such as energy undertakings most emphasis is placed on financial flows and rate of return on infrastructure investments although current greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to pose large costs on future generations these emissions are generally not estimated as part of the investment cost other public goods may also be omitted because their value is not recognized we review conventional cost benefit assessment and propose a new broader evaluation this new evaluation approach is based on the theory that five capital value types support long term well being rather than economic growth alone the theory states that humans depend on the size of stocks and flows from natural manufactured human social and financial capital we describe the five capitals to illustrate the value categories and outline an approach to evaluate all these in the context of energy development

collective wage bargaining and the role of institutional stability a cross national comparison of macroeconomic performance since the advent of the economic crisis interest in the efficacy of collective wage bargaining institutions has increased as the labour market was required to bear the burden of economic adjustment and became an important policy field for institutional reform in many countries in this article the role of institutional stability trust and certainty for the efficacy of collective bargaining systems is investigated and their effects on macroeconomic outcomes inflation and unemployment are analysed we argue that stability of the institutional framework of collective bargaining is of major importance for its efficacy as it reduces uncertainty and provides the necessary basis for trust among bargaining actors thus we hypothesise that institutional change and instability are associated with significant transaction costs and have at least temporarily negative effects on economic outcomes the hypotheses are confirmed by an empirical analysis which uses data of 34 industrialised countries from 1965 to 2014

ecological production based pricing of biosphere processes abstract ecological pricing theory and method is reviewed and then applied to the valuation of biosphere processes and services ecological pricing values biosphere processes on the basis of biophysical interdependencies between all parts of the ecosystem not just those that have direct or obvious value to humans the application of the ecological pricing method to the biosphere for 1994 indicates that the total value of primary ecological inputs services to be nearly us 25 trillion this compares with us 33 trillion obtained in the costanza et al 1997 study our analysis also indicated a good correspondence between the shadow ecological price and the observed market price for all marketable goods except fossil fuel which was undervalued by the market

the evolution of preferences why sovereign preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it abstract the conventional economic paradigm assumes that tastes and preferences are exogenous to the economic system and that the economic problem consists of optimally satisfying those preferences tastes and preferences usually do not change rapidly and in the short term this assumption makes sense sustainability is an inherently long term problem and in the long run it does not make sense to assume tastes and preferences are fixed and given if preferences are expected to change over time and under the influence of education advertising changing cultural assumptions etc the old assumption of consumer sovereignty is not adequate different criteria of optimality are needed how preferences change how they relate to the goal of sustainability and how they can or should be actively influenced to satisfy the new criteria needs to be determined ecological economics has emphasized the three rank ordered goals of ecological sustainability fair distribution and allocative efficiency this paper examines how preferences evolve and change over time and the implications of this for developing policies that meet these three goals in democratic societies

searching for sustainability the poverty of spontaneous order abstract traditional approaches to sustainability rely on models that depend upon judgments of welfare across future generations right prices and some sense as to what future persons will find giving of utility these models both accept the spontaneous order of market processes and rely on that order to derive optimal consumption paths into the future sustainability is however not a problem of divining optimal paths predicated upon right prices rather sustainability to be operational requires a prior constructed order predicated upon rights for future persons and duties for those now living who sit in a position as dictator over the settings and circumstances that will be passed on to future persons rights based approaches to sustainability do not rely upon unknowable preferences of future persons but rather upon an environmental regency in which those now living agree to preserve settings and circumstances for the future this reminds us that the issue of sustainability concerns not how much to preserve but what to preserve

multiple attribute decision analysis for ecosystem management abstract implementation of an ecosystem approach to natural resource management requires evaluation of a broad array of ecological services in a multidimensional community based watershed approach that empowers people to make informed management decisions conventional economic approaches that assign values to ecological services contingent valuation or that evaluate the efficiency of preserving and restoring those services cost benefit analysis are quite limited for this purpose in addition to the methodological difficulties encountered in applying contingent valuation and cost benefit analysis several problems occur when nonmarket values of ecological services are estimated independently of ecosystem planning and management multiple attribute decision making madm is an alternative conceptual framework for evaluating and selecting land and water resource management systems lwrms advantages of madm are that it facilitates community based collaborative decision making avoids some of the ethical theoretical and practical shortcomings of conventional economic approaches does not require assigning monetary values to ecological services allows consideration of multiple attributes and is not culturally biased the madm model described in this paper explains how a property manager selects the most preferred lwrms for a property based on their multiple stochastic attributes application of the model requires determination of the technically feasible lwrms for a property and specification of the socially acceptable ranges of attributes this information is combined with economic biophysical simulations to derive the efficient combination of attributes and lwrms for a property the property manager then selects the most preferred combination of attributes from the efficient combinations of attributes for a property using utility maximization surrogate worth tradeoff free iterative search analytical hierarchy process aspiration reservation based decision support system or stochastic dominance a watershed alliance can evaluate the sustainability of the most preferred lwrms for properties in a watershed based on a weak or strong sustainability criterion if the alliance determines that the most preferred lwrms are not sustainable then an index of attributes is used to evaluate the cost effectiveness of alternative public policies for stimulating the adoption of more sustainable lwrms

the shallow or the deep ecological economics movement ecological economics and its policy recommendations have become overwhelmed by economic valuation shadow pricing sustainability measures and squeezing nature into the commodity boxes of goods services and capital in order to make it part of mainstream economic financial and banking discourses there are deeper concerns which touch upon the understanding of humanity in its various social psychological political and ethical facets the relationship with nature proposed by the ecological economics movement has the potential to be far reaching however this is not the picture portrayed by surveying the amassed body of articles from this journal or by many of those claiming affiliation a shallow movement allied to a business as usual politics and economy has become dominant and imposes its preoccupation with mainstream economic concepts and values if instead ecological economists choose a path deep into the world of interdisciplinary endeavour they will need to be prepared to transform themselves and society the implications go far beyond the pragmatic use of magic numbers to convince politicians and the public that ecology still has something relevant to say in the 21st century author s abstract

collaborative enterprise and sustainability the case of slow food the current and prevailing paradigm of intensive agricultural production is a straightforward example of the mainstream way of doing business mainstream enterprises are based on a negativistic view of human nature that leads to counter productive and unsustainable behaviours producing negative impact for society and the natural environment if we want to change the course then different players are needed which can flourish thanks to their capacity to serve others and creating values for all the participants in the network in which they are embedded in the article through the analysis of the slow food movement and the use of recent theoretical and empirical contributions in behavioural sciences and psychology we support the collaborative enterprise model as an alternative to the still prevailing mainstream business models evidence shows that caring and responsible efforts of economic agents are acknowledged and reciprocated even in highly competitive markets

in search of substantive economics comparing today s two major socio metabolic approaches to the economy mefa and musiasem ecological economics is largely about the substantive in kind study of the economy as opposed to a purely formal economic analysis in money following kapp polanyi and others this article argues that substantive economics is interested in the biophysical and politico institutional structure of the economy rather than in correct prices within a particular axiomatic conformity as in formal economics after outlining the history of the substantive vs formal dichotomy we point out that socio metabolic analyses are ecological economics most significant contribution towards substantive economics the core of this article then compares what could be today s two best candidates for offering a distinctive foundation to ecological economics as substantive economics material and energy flows analyses mefa and multi scale integrated analyses of societal and ecosystem metabolism musiasem while mefa is more easily comparative and historical musiasem is more integrative and comprehensive yet we also argue that socio metabolic analyses represent one of the three pillars of substantive economics and that both mefa and musiasem are still weak in integrating the politico institutional structure second pillar and a theory of needs third pillar if such an integration was done ecological economics would be in a position to offer a full fledge alternative substantive economic theory

flows funds and the complexity of deprivation using concepts from ecological economics for the study of poverty abstract poverty has been increasingly conceptualized as being multidimensional involving deprivation in many dimensions of life this paper discusses issues and implications of multidimensional poverty by adopting concepts commonly used in ecological economics in particular poverty is approached as an irreducible complex phenomenon for which many legitimate but non equivalent descriptions exist issues of social and technical incommensurability are illustrated for different meanings and measurement types of poverty georgescu roegen s flow fund framework is interpreted informed by the capability approach of amartya sen the paper argues that a predominant focus on flows as a proxy to analyze poverty represents rather a short term perspective on access to satisfiers to fulfill particular needs contrary to that focusing on valued funds may provide useful information for the analysis of capabilities that persons and societies might pursue in the long term furthermore it is argued that strong poverty alleviation needs to adopt analytical tools that can deal with non trade off cases improvements in one poverty dimension cannot always compensate for the deterioration of other poverties this implies to rethink the usefulness of aggregate multidimensional poverty indices as well as the predominant use of income measures

a credit score system for socially responsible lending ethical banking microfinance institutions or certain credit cooperatives among others grant socially responsible loans this paper presents a credit score system for them the model evaluates social and financial aspects of the borrower the financial aspects are evaluated under the conventional banking framework by analysing accounting statements and financial projections the social aspects try to quantify the loan impact on the achievement of millennium development goals such as employment education environment health or community impact the social credit score model should incorporate the lender s know how and should also be coherent with its mission this is done using multi criteria decision making mcdm the paper illustrates a real case a loan application by a social entrepreneur presented to a socially responsible lender the decision support system not only produces a score but also reveals strengths and weaknesses of the application

environmental support energy security and economic growth in japan this study investigates the resource consumption of japanese society since 1979 and its subsequent effects on the economic output of the nation and the environment in order to quantify resource appropriation and trends in production and consumption the concept of emergy synthesis is employed our results show a significant increase in the total amount of emergy consumed by 66 9 between 1979 and 2003 which comes hand in hand with an increase in the level of environmental stress by 93 7 quantified as the environmental loading ratio on the other hand the emergy required to produce 1 usd of economic output has been gradually decreasing which denotes an increase in the efficiency of the conversion of natural capital into economic output what is most interesting though is the growing dependence of the japanese economy on imported emergy increasingly from developing nations that severely affects the potential for unhindered economic growth this can prove to be a big barrier that could affect the resource security of the japanese economy and render it susceptible to risks associated with access to natural resources which in turn can jeopardise its long term economic sustainability

dynamic multidimensional assessment of sustainability at the macro level the case of austria abstract this paper explores the issue of sustainability at the macro scale employing multi criteria decision aid mcda methods the incommensurability of values and the essentially multi dimensional and dynamic nature of sustainability challenge the use of composite measurement indices this determined the choice of mcda methods austria was chosen as a case study due to the wide availability of data especially on indicators of strong sustainability the structure of the multi criteria problem comprised the evolution of different sustainability dimensions over time the process for selecting criteria included a critical assessment of institutional sustainability agendas un eu and austrian government and theoretical recommendations after an assessment of mcda methods the naiade method demonstrated the most suitable properties for sustainability assessment the application of this outranking approach was undertaken in three separate settings long term from 1960 to 2003 medium term 1970 1995 and short term 1995 2003 with varying numbers of criteria the response of results to the addition of evaluating criteria and periods was tested the degree of credibility for accepting preference relations was also employed for sensitivity analysis according to the results of long term and medium term assessments especially in the weak sustainability setting sustainable progress is taking place in austria in the short term in the stronger sustainability setting and especially as the number of criteria increases more incomparable periods appear and trends are less determined moreover it is shown how results crucially depend on the methodological choices this is one of the first applications of the multi criteria tools to the dynamic analysis of sustainability at the macro scale

environmental economics and ecological economics where they can converge abstract environmental economics and ecological economics share the common objective of understanding the human economy environment interaction in order to redirect the economies towards sustainability in pursuing this objective these two perspectives utilise different types of analytical framework and are opposed to each other on many of the fundamental theoretical and methodological issues while the environmental economics has progressed within a narrowly but sharply focused neoclassical analytical approach the ecological economics has expanded by adopting a diversified approach which led to widen the gap between the two this article makes an attempt to highlight the divergence between these two perspectives on different issues and identifies certain research avenues that would potentially bring convergence between these two perspectives

fairness stewardship and sustainable development abstract the welfare economic concept of fairness offers an attractive axiomatic foundation for the popular notion of stewardship fairness emphasizes the ex ante equal standing of all persons across and within generations this highlights the inextracability of poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability especially in the agrarian tropics where biodiversity loss deforestation and desertification are growing global concerns

what is ecological economics ecological economics addresses the relationships between ecosystems and economic systems in the broadest sense these relationships are the locus of many of our most pressing current problems i e sustainability acid rain global warming species extinction wealth distribution but they are not well covered by any existing discipline environmental and resource economics as it is currently practiced covers only the application of neoclassical economics to environmental and resource problems ecology as it is cur rently practiced sometimes deals with human impacts on ecosystems but the more common tendency is to stick to natural systems ecological economics aims to extend these modest areas of overlap it will include neoclassical environmental economics and ecological impact studies as sub sets but will also encourage new ways of thinking about the linkages between ecological and economic systems we have chosen the name ecological economics for this area of study because it implies a broad ecological interdisciplinary and holistic view of the problem of studying and managing our world the earth from space cover of the journal reflects this global holistic perspective we did not intend to imply with the ordering of the two words in the title that the journal is mainly an economics journal it is intended to be a new approach to both ecology and economics that recognizes the need to make economics more cognizant of ecological impacts and dependencies the need to make ecology more sensitive to economic forces incentives and constraints and the need to treat integrated economic ecologic systems with a common but diverse set of conceptual and analytical tools there was much discussion of other possible names such as economic ecology or ecology and economics or some conjoining of the two words that to me end up being confusing tongue twisters like ecolnomics or econology but ecological economics seemed to get closest to the mean ing we desired while still being evocative to the uninitiated