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

prices and quantities unsustainable consumption and the global economy abstract the ecological unsustainability of current consumption patterns is now well documented one aspect of this problem which has not been sufficiently addressed is the growth of excess consumption driven by falling goods prices the index of department store prices have fallen substantially since the early 1990s in large part because global capital mobility and excess global labor supply has allowed firms to depress wages and avoid paying environmental costs consumers have responded by purchasing increasing numbers of these artificially cheap goods the example of apparel is discussed in some detail and data from other goods categories are presented these trends suggest that achieving sustainable consumption in the us is not only a technical issue but will also involve fundamental changes in the global political economy to eliminate the artificially low prices of imported goods

of goats and dogs joseph townsend and the idealisation of markets a decisive episode in the history of economics joseph townsend s dissertation on the poor laws 1786 played a major role in the development of economic thought its originality lies in the fact that the notion of competitive markets was defined as a natural law a principle of nature that should not be meddled with this principle was explained by describing the struggle for survival between goats and dogs on a remote pacific island the dissertation stands in the shadow of thomas malthus s essay on the principle of population yet malthus has been accused of plagiarising townsend i argue that an overlooked aspect in this debate is that townsend s dissertation and malthus s essay share a revolutionary methodology that removed the market mechanism from any cultural and social context in the name of science a feature that has been a part of market fundamentalist economics ever since

the new institutional economics this outstanding book presents new original contributions from some of the world s leading economists including ronald coase douglass c north masahiko aoki oliver e williamson and harold demsetz it demonstrates the extent and depth of the new institutional economics research programme which is having a worldwide impact on the economics profession

eco thermodynamics economics and the second law the laws of physics especially the first and second laws of thermodynamics have significant implications for economic theory the major implications of the first law conservation of mass energy are straightforward and have been discussed at length elsewhere in brief raw material inputs to economic processes are not consumed having been extracted from the environment in the first place they eventually return to the environment as wastes the economic implications of the second law entropy law are far more subtle there is considerable literature initiated by the work of georgescu roegen on the supposed constraints on economic growth imposed by the fact that economic processes utilize low entropy raw materials fossil fuels and high grade metal ores and discard high entropy wastes however as a practical matter the flux of available low entropy energy exergy from the sun is extremely large and certainly adequate to sustain economic activity in the solar system indefinitely even though fossil fuel and metal ore stocks may eventually be exhausted it is argued in this paper that the real economic significance of the second law lies in the fact that exergy is i not conserved and ii is a useful common measure of resource quality as well as quantity applicable to both materials and energy thus exergy can be used to measure and compare resource inputs and outputs including wastes and losses this is potentially important in itself moreover since exergy is not conserved it is truly consumed i e used up in economic processes hence exergy is no less a factor of production than labor or capital this fact has strong implications for economic growth theory especially with regard to assessing the role of technical progress

externalities a market model failure we focus here on a set of conceptual problems related to the accepted theory of externalities we are primarily concerned with difficulties that arise when a theoretical system is extended beyond its logical domain this is the practice in externality theory when the market model assuming independent agents is used to analyze physical interdependency the different kinds of dependencies obscure the standard use of the paretian analysis as the issues of rights and efficiency are mixed up the creation of emissions and the creation of externalities are further not held apart producing flows in the efficiency evaluations due to the interdependencies involved actions of both emitter and victim must be taken into account while searching for efficient policies finally we analyze the interrelationships between what is termed the internal structure of the market model and the annexed sphere of externalities we conclude that the accepted policy prescriptions both assume and demand no interrelationships between these two spheres we find the assumption unrealistic and inconsistent as concerns the basic foundations of the market model there are two main traditions addressing externalities the coasean and the pigovian this paper shows that both are vulnerable to the above critique thus the presumption that externality theory is now settled and coherent is seen to be without theoretical support

defining economics the long road to acceptance of the robbins definition robbins essay gave economics a definition that came to dominate the professional literature this definition laid a foundation that could be seen as justifying both the narrowing of economic theory to the theory of constrained maximization or rational choice and economists ventures into other social science fields though often presented as self evidently correct both the definition itself and the developments that it has been used to support were keenly contested this paper traces the reception diffusion and contesting of the robbins definition arguing that this process took around three decades and that even then there was still significant dissent

evolutionary theories in environmental and resource economics approaches and applications recent advances in evolutionary theory have important implications for environmental economics a short overview is offered of evolutionarythinking in economics subsequently major concepts and approaches inevolutionary biology and evolutionary economics are presented andcompared attention is devoted among others to darwinian selection punctuated equilibrium sorting mechanisms lamarckian evolution coevolution and self organization basic features of evolution such assustained change irreversible change unpredictability qualitativechange and disequilibrium are examined it is argued that there are anumber of fundamental differences as well as similarities betweenbiological and economic evolution next some general implications ofevolutionary thinking for environmental economics are outlined this isfollowed by a more detailed examination of potential uses ofevolutionary theories in specific areas of environmental economics including sustainability and long run development theories technologyand environment ecosystem management and resilience spatial evolutionand environmental processes and design of environmental policy

trends in the development of ecological economics from the late 1980s to the early 2000s abstract as the contributions to ecological economics are very diverse recent years have seen some discussion on both how to delimit the field and in which direction it should develop the intention with this paper is to contribute to the discussion by outlining important trends in the development of the field from the late 1980s to the early 2000s the study is inspired by other studies in the sociology and history of science in particular by the theoretical framework regarding scientific fields as reputational organizations which draws attention to both cognitive and social aspects of the formation of a field the basis for the paper is a combination of literature studies interviews with key researchers in the field and participant observations the paper outlines the characteristic cognitive features of ecological economics at the time of the birth of the field it is then described how the development in ecological economics was influenced by broader social factors during the following years and how the field was shaped by the inflow and outflow of different groups of researchers the emergence of different research programmes is outlined as is the organizational development finally the characteristics of ecological economics are summarized and the future prospects are briefly assessed

the assessment the european internal market the next steps the treaty of rome envisaged the creation of the common internal market between the member states of the european community progress to wards this goal has been slow punctuated by sudden bursts of activity after the expiry of the deadline for the 1992 programme 1993 may mark the beginning of a prolonged pause or it may provide the impetus towards full economic mon etary and political integration at the time of writing the treaty on european union the maas tricht treaty the product of the french initiative to bind a unified germany into the european economy has not yet been ratified in all ec member coun tries the second danish referendum is outstand ing as is completion of the ratification process in the ukparliament the exchange rate mechanism erm has come under severe pressure with the suspension of uk membership and a series of devaluations in short monetary integration ac cording to the delors programme seems more remote now than at any time since the uk joined the erm stage n is extremely unlikely to begin on 1 january 1994 2 the main cause of these difficulties has been german reunification high german inter est rates have not only undermined currency pari ties they have also exacerbated recession across the community this shock to the european commu nity will take several years more to work through

k william kapp s theory of social costs and environmental policy towards political ecological economics abstract the paper analyzes the contribution of k william kapp widely considered one of the founders of ecological economics this paper will demonstrate how k william kapp developed his theory of social costs into a framework for environmental policy development i e the basis for political ecological economics the latter provides the most comprehensive and non utilitarian alternative to the main neoclassical approaches provided by arthur pigou and ronald coase kapp determined basic human needs to be necessary values operational for policymaking via politically derived and scientifically determined social minima criteria and socio ecological indicators this rational humanism was inspired by weber s concept of substantive rationality and informed by john dewey s pragmatic instrumentalism the paper concludes that kapp s contribution is important enough to cement its place in the broader school of ecological economics

footprints in the cotton fields the industrial revolution as time space appropriation and environmental load displacement this paper offers a method for quantifying the global exchange of natural space and labor time underlying the economic success of the british textile industry in the late 18th and early 19th century using historical statistics on inputs of land and labor embodied in cotton and wool production respectively estimates are made of the amount of british land and labor that were saved by displacing fibre production to north america by comparing inputs of land and labor in the textile exports of england with those in some commodities imported from its colonial periphery and juxtaposing these data with exchange rates estimates are also made of unequal exchange using such methods it is possible to bring together the marxist concern with unequal exchanges of labor time on one hand with the more recent concern with ecological footprints on the other

marx s reproduction schemes and the environment abstract ecological economists have argued that marx s reproduction schemes are self contained circular flows that downgrade the importance of natural conditions the present paper evaluates this criticism in light of both marx s methodology and his response to quesnay s tableau economique it is shown that marx follows quesnay in clearly distinguishing monetary circular flows from material throughput and that his schemes encapsulate the dependence of capitalist production on natural conditions as developed elsewhere in capital at the same time the purpose of marx s schemes is not to theorize environmental crises but to set out the basic exchanges necessary for capitalist reproduction as a material and social class process marx s analyses of capitalist environmental crises are developed at other points in capital

the assessment energy policy u k energy policy in the 1980s is reviewed in the light of the principal market failures in the energy sector monopoly fuel diversity security of supply and externalities the analysis is largely confined to the non oil sectors it is observed that the presence of excess capacity enabled the primary focus of policy to concentrate on competition and thus on the use of existing assets in the 1990s the u k will move into an external energy deficit and significant decisions on capacity levels and choice will be required in the electricity and coal industries the market failures associated with investment decisions and environmental pollution will therefore again come to the fore it is argued that although these longer run decisions will inevitably remain largely in public hands the policy issues in the 1990s will focus on the development of a framework within which largely privately owned firms will operate copyright 1991 by oxford university press

elephant poaching ivory trafficking problems in sub saharan africa an application of o hara s principles of political economy this paper examines the complex social problem of african elephant decimation using a political economy approach this paper applies five principles of o hara s political economy pope historical specificity circular and cumulative causation uneven development heterogeneous agents and contradiction pope provides a practical tool for scrutinising the interdependent aspects of a problem the culture of conspicuous consumption for ivory is a key historical driver of demand yet a core integrated factor that helps explain the current crisis relates to the principle of uneven development the role of uneven development can be indirect through lack of human development causing high crime and corruption rates weak policy frameworks and conflicts in land ownership further heterogeneity of agents adds to the complexity of the networks engaged in the decimation of elephants linked to the poaching trafficking circuit of heterogeneous agents this paper identifies two specific elephant contradictions between the market forces of durable fixed capital and environment elephant capital this study contributes to the literature by analysing the interlinking cumulative processes of elephant poaching and ivory trafficking networks which previous studies in the economics literature tend to ignore

the assessment productivity and competitiveness in british manufacturing this issue of the oxford review examines productivity and competitiveness in british manufac turing the simplest and most widely used measure of productivity is output per head from this definition sprout at once the horns of a dilemma for an economy facing unemployment on the present scale for a given rate of expansion of output the higher the rate of productivity growth the greater the decline in employment or at least the smaller its growth on the other hand in an economy open to international competition a high rate of productivity growth relative to that of other countries is the long term key to achieving the favourable international competitive po sition necessary to sustain growth and a low level of unemployment

does ecological economics have a future contradiction and reinvention in the age of climate change abstract this paper addresses the role of neoclassical methodologies in ecological economics and the contradictions these methodologies pose to the field s critical founding principles we first consider robert costanza s treatment of nicholas stern s global deal and then survey climate change related articles published in this journal over the past five years this survey reveals how mainstream neoclassical methodologies dominate discourse and do so by marginalizing more critical political economy analyses this situation imperils the field s founding vision of a no growth steady state it also fails to address the related growth dynamics of capitalism without such a critical treatment the field s formal embrace of methodological pluralism actually entails an ideological empiricism that renders ecological economics theoretically incoherent this situation undermines the field s historical promise as an alternative economic paradigm ecological economics now faces a problematic future its survival in a form faithful to its founding vision will require an explicit choice to address its internal contradictions and reinvent itself in ways relevant to our contemporary context without such a choice ecological economics will likely succumb to an implicit acceptance of the hegemony of mainstream economic methodologies and their pro growth imperatives

sustainability economics general versus specific and conceptual versus practical we clarify the definition and interpretation of sustainability economics baumgartner and quaas 2010 in response to recent comments by van den bergh 2010 bartelmus 2010 and others for that sake we distinguish between general and specific definitions of sustainability and sustainability economics as well as between conceptual and practical approaches

the coase theorem and the empty core a comment i would not presume to discuss the value of the theory of the core for economic analysis what i will do is to explain why study of the example which professors aivazian and callen use as the basis of their argument has not led me to modify my views the imagined situation which aivazian and callen analyse is one in which there is a laundry c and two firms a and b which pollute profits would be in total greater if the two polluters a and b closed down it is argued that in the conditions set out in their example c could not induce a and b to cease operations by means of money payments ifa and b were not liable for the harm inflicted on c it is assumed that if each firm operated independently firm a would earn profits of 3 000 per unit of time b 8 000 and c 24 000 however if a pair of these firms made an agreement to change their mode of operation the joint profits would be for a and b 15 000 for a and c 31 000 and for b and c 36 000 since the firm excluded from these agreements would continue to operate independently it is apparent by adding the profit earned by this firm to the joint profit of the two firms in the agreement that the combined profits of all three firms would always remain 39 000 however if a and b could be induced to close down so that c alone continued to operate c s profits would be 40 000 as total profits with two firms party to an agreement and one firm acting independently are always 39 000 and total profits would be 40 000 if c alone operated it would seem possible for c to make payments to a and b out of the additional 1 000 that would accrue which would make a and b better off than if they continued in operation and would still leave something over to increase c s profits aivazian and callen argue however that this would not happen they maintain given the conditions postulated in their example that even if an arrangement was made between a b and c which enabled profits of 40 000 to be earned that position would be unstable

reconciling sustainability systems theory and discounting abstract most definitions of sustainability imply that a system is to be maintained at a certain level held within certain limits into the indefinite future sustainability denies run away growth but it also avoids any decline or destruction this sustainability path is hard to reconcile with the renewal cycle that can be observed in many natural systems developing according to their intrinsic mechanisms and in social systems responding to internal and external pressures systems are parts of hierarchies where systems of higher levels are made up of subsystems from lower levels renewal in components is an important factor of adaptation and evolution if a system is sustained for too long it borrows from the sustainability of a supersystem and rests upon lack of sustainability in subsystems therefore by sustaining certain systems beyond their renewal cycle we decrease the sustainability of larger higher level systems for example schumpeter s theory of creative destruction posits that in a capitalist economy the collapse and renewal of firms and industries is necessary to sustain the vitality of the larger economic system however if the capitalist economic system relies on endless growth then sustaining it for too long will inevitably borrow from the sustainability of the global ecosystem this could prove catastrophic for humans and other species to reconcile sustainability with hierarchy theory we must decide which hierarchical level in a system we want to sustain indefinitely and accept that lower level subsystems must have shorter life spans in economic analysis inter temporal discount rates essentially tell us how long we should care about sustaining any given system economists distinguish between discount rates for individuals based on personal time preference lower discount rates for firms based on the opportunity cost of capital and even lower discount rates for society for issues affecting even higher level systems such as global climate change many economists question the suitability of discounting future values at all we argue that to reconcile sustainability with inter temporal discounting discount rates should be determined by the hierarchical level of the system being analyzed

the ideology of efficiency searching for a theory of policy analysis the potential pareto improvement criterion and other measures of economic efficiency do not pass the test of consistency and coherence within economic theory nor do such measures accord with what public decision makers seek in policy advice from economists such efficiency measures are nonetheless durable components of the ideology of economics in general and benefit cost analysis in particular the objectivity of the policy scientist has been confused with the objectivity of the science while economic efficiency has no claim to objectivity the policy scientist can be an objective analyst of policy choices

the effect of gender and race on student performance in principles of economics the importance of personality type do women and minorities perform more poorly in economics courses than their white male counterparts there are a number of studies that indicate that they do siegfried 1979 ferber et al 1983 lumsden and scott 1987 gohmann and specter 1989 watts and lynch 1989 anderson et al 1994 in addition there are some studies that indicate that students personality types adversely affect their performance in economics courses as well borg and shapiro 1996 zeigert 2000 however no one has yet studied how a student s personality type combines with race and gender to affect performance in economics courses to explore this issue this study tests for the statistical significance of a number of interaction effects between race and gender and the kiersey bates temperament types in an ordered probit model explaining a student s grade in principles of macroeconomics it is concluded that race and gender do matter in a student s performance in principles of macroeconomics but not in a simple direc

the case for methodological pluralism abstract ecology and economics share the same greek root both address complex systems ecology consists of numerous approaches to understanding natural systems energetics population biology food web models hierarchy theory to mention just a few within ecology field knowledge and the reporting of new observations are well respected economics on the other hand is dominated by one pattern of thinking and standard of proof the market model and econometrics within economics field knowledge and observations per se are little valued agreement on a correct method is frequently taken as an indication of the maturity of a science the argument is developed in this paper that all the aspects of complex systems can only be understood through multiple methodologies the agreement on method within economics however seems to reflect stronger pressures within the discipline for conformity than for truth relative to ecology since ecological economics seeks to understand a larger system than either economics or ecology seeks to understand a diversity of methodologies is appropriate and pressures to eliminate methodologies for the sake of conformity should be avoided

the economics of schooling production and efficiency in public schools n recent years public and professional interest in schools has been heightened by a spate of reports many of them critical of current school policy these policy documents have added to persistent and long standing concerns about the cost effectiveness and fairness of the current school structure and have made schooling once again a serious public issue as in the past however any renewed interest in education is likely to be short lived doomed to dissipate as frustration over the inability of policy to improve school practice sets in this frustration about school policy relates directly to knowledge about the educational production process and in turn to underlying research on schools although the educational process has been extensively researched clear policy prescriptions flowing from this research have been difficult to derive 2 there exists however a consistency to the research findings that does have an immediate application to school policy schools differ dramatically in quality

political economy of climate change ecological destruction and uneven development abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyze climate change and ecological destruction through the prism of the core general principles of political economy the paper starts with the principle of historical specificity and the various waves of climate change through successive cooler and warmer periods on planet earth including the most recent climate change escalation through the open circuit associated with the treadmill of production then we scrutinize the principle of contradiction associated with the disembedded economy social costs entropy and destructive creation the principle of uneven development is then explored through core periphery dynamics ecologically unequal exchange metabolic rift and asymmetric global in justice the principles of circular and cumulative causation ccc and uncertainty are then related to climate change dynamics through non linear transformations complex interaction of dominant variables and threshold effects climate change and ecological destruction are impacting on most areas especially the periphery earlier and more intensely than previously thought likely a political economy approach to climate change is able to enrich the analysis of ecological economics and put many critical themes in a broad context

new foundations for ecological economics abstract ecological economics has been repeatedly described as transdiciplinary and open to including everything from positivism to relativism i argue for a revision and rejection of this position in favour of realism and reasoned critique looking into the ontological presuppositions and considering an epistemology appropriate for ecological economics to meaningfully exist requires rejecting the form of methodological pluralism which has been advocated since the start of this journal this means being clear about the differences in our worldview or paradigm from others and being aware of the substantive failures of orthodox economics in addressing reality this paper argues for a fundamental review of the basis upon which ecological economics has been founded and in so doing seeks improved clarity as to the competing and complementary epistemologies and methodologies in part this requires establishing serious interdisciplinary research to replace superficial transdisciplinary rhetoric the argument places the future of ecological economics firmly amongst heterodox economic schools of thought and in ideological opposition to those supporting the existing institutional structures perpetuating a false reality of the world s social environmental and economic systems and their operation

allocation distribution and scale towards an economics that is efficient just and sustainable abstract the practical policy of issuing tradeable permits for depletion and pollution requires for its implementation the clear separation of the three basic economic goals of efficient allocation equitable distribution and sustainable scale economic theory needs to catch up with policy in recognizing that scale issues cannot be reduced to either allocation or distribution

the approach of ecological economics this paper discusses the major tenets of ecological economics including value pluralism methodological pluralism and multi criteria policy assessment ecological economics offers viable alternatives to the theoretical foundations and policy recommendations of neoclassical welfare economics a revolution in neoclassical economics is currently taking place and the core assumptions of welfare economics are being replaced with more realistic models of consumer and firm behaviour this paper argues that these new theoretical and empirical findings are largely ignored in applied work and policy applications in environmental economics as the only heterodox school of economics focusing on the human economy both as a social system and as one imbedded in the biophysical universe and thus both holistic and scientifically based ecological economics is poised to play a leading role in recasting the scope and method of economic science

rio 20 looking back at 20 years of environmental and resource economics twenty years on from the rio 92 conference we must face the fact that there have been a few successes but more failures scientific complexity uncertainty short termism inherent in politics the free rider problem and issues of fairness are part of the explanation for the lack of progress but we point to more fundamental motivational problems it is time to assess our responsibility as economists in the field of environment and resources our scientific contribution has been misleading because our models are structurally incapable of addressing major concerns the cost benefit test is not fit to assess large scale resource conservation projects including climate abatement this understanding was already present during the rio 92 summit but the problems while identified have not been resolved twenty years later the contribution from theory through the sustainability paradigm of non decreasing welfare has turned out ineffective it does not provide us with tools for designing a better future for our children instead it risks choosing a constant welfare path with knowledge increasing but natural resources deteriorating while not properly analyzing the richer possibilities for a better future that nature and creativity imply it is time for our profession to search for a more constructive contribution in theory and practice

monetary valuation of ecosystem services it matters to get the timeline right in the abundant literature dealing with the monetary valuation or monetization of ecosystem services mes with very few exceptions the concept is presented as having emerged in 1997 in fact there is a long history starting in the late fifties but largely ignored of sustained attempts to assign monetary values to nature s services these early efforts encountered many conceptual and methodological roadblocks which could not be resolved and led a number of researchers to argue that monetary valuation was not a fruitful approach it is in that context that mes was hailed by some in 1997 as a promising way to integrate environmental goods and services into the logic of economic markets knowledge of the full timeline casts a very different light in particular on the difficulties currently encountered in the practice of mes far from being the expected growing pains of a young discipline these difficulties turn out to be long standing problems that have eluded solution over the last half century and appear intrinsically unresolvable this perspective suggests that at this point it is advisable to look at alternatives to mes for the integration of nature into economic decisions

institutional ecological economics abstract new institutional economics and its forerunners have we argue made important contributions to the evolving agenda of ecological economics the conceptualisation of environmental problems as instances of interdependence and the acknowledgement of positive transaction costs are key insights into the nature of environmental problems we also discuss how plurality of behavioural motivations and limited cognitive capacity have important implications for environmental decision making and its analysis we show how evolutionary and collective action theories offer complementary takes on the choice and change of environmental governance institutions and how the concept of social capital can enrich analyses of environmental governance we conclude that an emerging institutional ecological economics has the greatest relative advantage in analysing the design implementation and effectiveness of environmental governance solutions

finding common ground between ecological economics and post keynesian economics abstract post keynesian economics and ecological economics have in common that they are considered to be heterodox schools of thought aside from that there has not been a strong connection between them previous books on post keynesian economics contain no chapter on environmental or ecological issues this neglect has led leading ecological economists to criticize post keynesians for succumbing to the same growth paradigm as the neoclassical school this paper argues that the two approaches are complementary in the sense that they each have different strong points ecological economics has correctly pointed out that the growth of the global economy may not be welfare improving anymore whereas post keynesians have gained valuable insights into the functioning of the capitalist growth process to determine the feasibility of a synthesis between the two schools the paper compares their approaches to the problems of production consumption and economic dynamics as well as the associated policy recommendations it shows that on a theoretical level the two schools have much in common but their policy conclusions differ with regard to the desirability of further growth the paper concludes that a synthesis of both approaches may lead to a better understanding of how a capitalist economy operates in a natural environment with limits to growth and to better informed policy advice

decentralisation as an incentive scheme recent changes have introduced more decentralization in a number of traditionally centralized countries 1 in the case of france it is sometimes claimed that the 1982 1983 reform of subcentral government is of historical importance although the principles of that reform are not contested any more by the new majority elected in 1986 opinions still differ on a number of policy issues some of the issues are presented in this introductory section but the main purpose of this paper is not to expose or discuss in detail the problems of decentralization in france as argued in the second part of the introductory section the theoretical framework in which the policy issues of decentralization are usually discussed by economists is somewhat unsatisfactory in particular when applied to unitary states such as britain or france the bulk of the paper is devoted to the exploration of a different approach to decentralization it is not purported however that this approach could completely replace the more traditional one consequently when in the concluding section we return briefly to the policy issues identified here this is to be read as a preliminary attempt to evaluate the relevance of the reasoning developed in the paper

the principles courses revisited in this paper we consider several factors affecting performance in principles of economics courses that have received little or no previous attention in the economic education literature while these variables reflect a diverse group of factors they have all become important in recent years and are likely to remain so in the future specifically we examine 1 the effects on student learning and grades of assigning graduate student instructors who speak english as a second language 2 the effects of alternative semester formats that change the intensity and duration of instruction in principles courses 3 the effects of mixing freshmen and upperclassmen with sophomores who have tradi

education achievement in segregated school systems the effects of separate but equal educational achievement in segregated school systems was considerably lower in the black schools than in the white schools economic historians have argued that the racial achievement gap reflected the discriminatory funding of the black schools this paper assesses counterfactually the historical effects of a separate but equal policy of educational finance using cross sectional data from 1930 and 1940 i estimate race specific educational production functions eliminating race differences in inputs supplied by school boards explains 40 50 percent of the racial achievement gap depending on how achievement is measured the remainder appears to reflect the impact of family background on achievement of which the most important effect was adult black illiteracy a legacy of slavery and educational backwardness in the late 19th century the paper also shows how school boards marginal valuation of black achievement can be recovered from the production function estimates compared to preferences that would have led them to voluntarily practice equality southern school boards judged black achievement to be worth roughly half the value they placed on white achievement this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

k william kapp s theory of social costs a luhmannian interpretation in developing his famous theory of social costs k william kapp claimed to draw inspiration from the theory of open systems the present paper reconstructs the notion of social costs from the perspective of the luhmannian theory of autopoietic social systems an alternative systems theoretic paradigm according to luhmann these systems build up their internal complexity at the cost of lowering their sensitivity to the complexity of their environment both societal and ecological from the luhmannian perspective social costs can be understood as those segments of environmental feedback that are thus ignored by social systems this perspective is not only consistent with kapp s own vision of social costs as a systematic outcome of private business enterprise but also even more radical as it traces these costs back to the regime of functional differentiation of society and thus to human civilization generally it follows from the luhmannian perspective that social costs can be reduced by improving the coordination between the individual functional systems such as economy law politics and science

towards a new complexity economics for sustainability some of the most important and urgent topics requiring economic analysis and policy advice are the problems of climate change and environmental sustainability and what can be done to alter corporate and individual behaviour to deal with these issues neoclassical economists tend to focus on market solutions such as carbon trading drawing on ideas of perfect rationality of actors and the appropriateness of marginal analysis to link such policies to the whole range of potential actions from legislative and regulatory to changing individual behaviours requires the economy and society to be analysed in its full complexity recognising that marginal analysis can be not just irrelevant but positively harmful when the need is for systemic shifts in economic and social trajectories this article draws upon a seminar series on complexity economics to consider how heterodox economic analysis can be brought to bear on the issue of the environment to develop a realistic policy agenda for change copyright oxford university press

structured pluralism in ecological economics a reply to peter soderbaum s commentary abstract peter soderbaum argues in his commentary concerning my article on sustainability economics remig 2015 for more open and radical ecological economics i agree with that statement however i reject soderbaum s interpretation that my arguments foster mainstreamed ecological economics or dictatorship in my critique of sustainability economics i raised several issues that have remained unspecified and that potentially lead to unsustainable development patterns once put into practice soderbaum does not reply to these conceptual challenges of sustainability economics in this commentary i argue that structured pluralism dow 2004 is a constituent element of ecological economics i welcome peter soderbaum s proposal for a discussion about the definition of economics and suggest to rely on ronald coase s proposal to define economics as a science that studies the working of the economic system i conclude that sustainability economics in its current form is closer to neoclassical than ecological economics

economic schools of thought on the environment investigating unity and division how do ecological and heterodox economists differ if at all from each other and from neoclassical economists addressing environmental problems in 2009 we probed this question by conducting an international survey across these communities namely at conferences of the european society for ecological economics the association for heterodox economics and the european association of environmental and resource economists the research was designed to gain insight into the extent to which ecological economics can be described as heterodox and a distinct field from orthodox environmental and resource economics conflicting visions of ecological economics have led to a prevalence of neoclassical articles and thought mixed in amongst more heterodox work we introduce a novel classification of work in the field of environmental policy in order to test for the existence of differences in terms of methodological and ideological approaches how heterodox economists understand environmental issues is also an important question to answer if there is to be more collaboration between them and ecological economists the findings have implications for cooperation and the future direction of both ecological and heterodox economics

varieties of ecological economics do we need a more open and radical version of ecological economics abstract should we aim at one single economics paradigm for all purposes or is it wise to accept the existence of more than one theoretical perspective is one ecological economics perspective enough or should we encourage competing paradigms as part of a pluralist perspective moritz remig expresses his preference for mainstreaming ecological economics in the january 2015 issue of ecological economics suggesting that alternative perspectives and alternative terminologies such as sustainability economics lead to confusion in this reply i am arguing that there is no value free or value neutral ecological economics and that therefore limiting economics or ecological economics to one paradigm is not compatible with democracy we have to live with some complexity when dealing with sustainability issues and should not avoid issues of paradigm ideology and political economic system

international environmental problems a simple taxonomy of international environmental problems is developed based on economic considerations the unidirectional externalities are illustrated by the case of one upstream and one downstream country the main problem in this case is an informational one the analysis of regional reciprocal externalities is illustrated by the acid rains in europe it is shown that an efficient solution could be achieved by transferable export rights finally global external problems are discussed with reference to greenhouse effects and extinction of species copyright 1990 by oxford university press

eec integration towards 1992 some distributional aspects gains and losses from 1992 damien j neven this paper examines how the benefits and costs of the internal market programme will be shared across member states the main conclusion is that the northern european countries stand to gain little from 1992 the only exception is the uk which will benefit from integration because initially it is less integrated than its northern neighbours the main beneficiaries will be the southern european countries they will benefit both from a better exploitation of their comparative advantage in labour intensive commodities and from the gains from unexploited scale economies which have already been substantially exploited in northern europe although northern countries have a comparative advantage in goods which are intensive in human capital southern markets for these goods are relatively small that is why it is the southern countries which stand to gain most even if in addition ec trade with the rest of the world is liberalized at the same pace as within the ec labour intensive production especially clothing and footwear in the south could increase by as much as 14 after 1992 areas in the north where such industries are concentrated may be the largest losers from 1992

the identity of ecological economics retrospects and prospects the paper first reveals the relevance of ecological economics in the time of a triple crisis ecological social and economic and promotes it as a distinct paradigm comprised of two interconnected and interdependent aspects the qualitative framework within which it operates and the quantitative models and techniques it uses to observe ecosystem resilience measure progress towards sustainability and evaluate policies while acknowledging the progress that has so far been made the paper argues that divergences in understanding the meaning and content of ecological economics hinder its effectiveness and influence on real world policy making and calls for a unified framework as a common ground that would strengthen the field and direct research the implication of this position then follows pointing out what has so far been missing from the ecological economics analysis and what should be done for it to become a more problem oriented and policy relevant alternative copyright oxford university press

unraveling the veil of fuzziness a thick description of sustainability economics this article provides a thick description geertz 1973 of sustainability economics baumgartner and quaas 2010a b have proposed as an alternative to ecological economics the new field of sustainability economics which has triggered various replies the purpose here is to order and to review these contributions building upon a literature review of sustainability economics the paper argues that the concept currently has more of a fuzzy and declamatory character the rhetoric mccloskey 1998 of sustainability economics contains general issues of sustainability economics externalities and the capability approach the article argues that it is currently not clear how the solutions for science and policy proposed by sustainability economics differ from those of ecological economics efforts should be directed towards further development of the theory and the operationalization of sustainability principles the systemic view of co evolutionary development social learning and sustainability economics normative underpinning merits more consideration in the debate about sustainability economics

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