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

towards a vanishing middle competition in the world garment industry abstract the international garment industry falls broadly into two segments one which may be referred to as the fashion segment is governed by competition based on new product introduction and quality improvements the other segment comprising of mass produced garments is governed by price competition while there is some evidence that the fashion sector is growing in importance our concern in this paper will be the price competitive sector which has been and continues to be predominantly the main arena in which newly industrializing and developing countries participate

sustainability and externalities is the internalization of externalities a sufficient condition for sustainability in an important contribution in ecological economics van de bergh 2010 correctly concludes that sustainability does not imply zero externalities however he continues with the delphic statement delphic statements were uttered by the renowned oracle of ancient greece at delphi they were phrased in such a way as to be self fulfilling because alternative interpretations covered every possibility without externalities the problem of sustainability vanishes if this statement refers to an impossible economic process that produces no externalities then he is right however it might be interpreted as stating that whenever environmental policy internalizes environmental externalities then sustainability will be ensured in this note i assert that in the real world where externalities prevail their internalization or neutralization in the traditional way cannot lead to sustainability only if internalization takes a very specific form that results in the inviolable preservation of environmental rights of future generations in pure biological terms can sustainability be ensured after revised the original commentary i resubmit it the issues raised by the editor have been carefully considered

economics ecology based communities and sustainability abstract this paper comments on the inadequacy of orthodox economics when communities perceive themselves as ecology based that is when they recognize that their livelihood depends upon living natural resources not surprisingly an economics largely developed in the context of a spatial a natural industrialization and designed to serve the interests policies and tools of the nation state is inadequate when addressing communities within the context of their regions and ecological systems the author suggests that a sustainability economics is needed and that its character can be better focused if based on a local and regional ecosystem perspective the critique is relevant to general economic praxis because all economies depend upon natural processes and all economic actors are socialized within communities an approach to development of a sustainability economics is suggested

towards an operational sustainability criterion abstract this paper examines the concept of sustainability and its implications for environmental policy analysis it builds on the premise that present society holds a moral obligation to pass on a world of undiminished life opportunities to members of future generations maintaining life opportunities in turn can be achieved by maintaining or improving a diverse set of resources and capabilities that support a person s freedom to define and pursue her own conception of the good life on an operational level this framework points to the following guideline for environmental policy protecting the rights of future generations requires either the conservation of environmental resources or compensatory measures including the provision of substitute technologies that ensure the fair and proportionate sharing of net benefits over intergenerational time scales in this framework resource depletion is permissible only if with reasonable certainty it would generate a pareto improvement relative to a baseline scenario involving strict resource conservation

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

the place of the capability approach within sustainability economics the connections between the capability approach and sustainability economics have been explored recently i argue here that for engaging in a more substantive study of those connections we must first understand the place of the capability approach within the history of economic thought as a second stage of the revival of classical surplus theory once this is clear we can then use the capability approach in order to specify concepts such as well being surplus scarcity and sustainable reproduction which are essential for the development of sustainability economics

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 value and applicability of bargaining in an intergenerational setting abstract this paper considers the effectiveness of a variation of coasian bargaining as a policy instrument for internalizing one or multiple intergenerational externalities the variation involves appointing a contemporary party to represent the interests of the affected parties who are currently unable to represent themselves potential criticisms of such a policy are considered and addressed and precedents to such a policy are put forth to test the value of such a policy a two period model in which two externalities exist in the production consumption decisions and with representative agents is used to compare the welfare effects of four scenarios 1 agents in each period optimize their period specific utility 2 a benevolent social planner chooses allocations in both periods to maximize a social welfare function 3 the externalities are internalized using a bargaining policy and 4 the externalities are internalized using a tax and subsidy policy i find that contrary to general consensus in the literature coasian bargaining can be adapted in such a way as to make it applicable in an intergenerational framework

the relevance of epistemic analysis to sustainability economics and the capability approach abstract this paper considers how epistemic analyses birkin and polesie 2011 foucault 1970 foucault 1990a foucault 1990b may assist with the development of sustainability economics bartelmus 2010 baumgartner and quaas 2010a baumgartner and quaas 2010b and soderbaum 2011 and the capability approach ballet et al 2011 martins 2011 rauschmayer and lesmann 2011 scerri 2012 it was the french social theorist michel foucault 1926 1984 who coined the term episteme to refer to the possibility of knowledge that determines the development of thought and knowledge in a given period for foucault epistemes were the buried foundations of knowledge that his epistemic archaeology could unearth in 2007 foucault was identified as the most cited author of books in the humanities by thomson reuters isi web of science this paper begins with a brief definition and description of epistemic analyses a summary analysis of the modern episteme and neoclassical economics is then provided and this is followed by outline evidence for the emerging episteme finally the opportunity is considered for the emerging episteme to reinforce and enhance sustainability economics and the capability approach

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

questions on international trade in textiles and clothing questions of importance for the negotiations on the extension of the arrangement regarding international trade in textiles focus on i relative importance of trade in textiles and clothing ii the participants in this trade iii products that succeed for developing countries iv market penetration in developed country markets v overall trends and vi effects of protectionist activities six conclusions are drawn 1 developed countries continue to generate the bulk of the world s exports of textiles 2 industries in developing countries are too small to threaten the developed countries industries 3 developed countries collectively enjoy a large and sustained surplus in textile trade offset by a larger and growing deficit in clothing 4 only hong kong south korea taiwan and india have large trade surpluses among developing countries 5 import penetration by developing countries is modest and 6 because of protection developing countries exports of textiles and clothing have no longer outstripped the growth of all trade in textiles and clothing since 1976

a matter of opinion how ecological and neoclassical environmental economists and think about sustainability and economics abstract the differing paradigms of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics have been described in various articles and books and are also embedded in different professional associations however we cannot take for granted that the paradigm debates described in the literature are actually mirrored in exactly the same way in the perceptions and opinions of researchers looking at sustainability from an economic perspective this paper presents empirical results from a german case study on how economists and others involved in sustainability research from different schools of thought think about the issues of sustainability and economics how they group around these issues how they feel about the current scientific divide and what they expect to be future topics of sustainability research we analyze the data using cluster analysis based on a literature survey we generated forty sustainability economics related statements and asked 196 sustainability researchers about their degree of agreement or disagreement with these statements in evaluating our survey results we discuss to what extent the clusters that we identified do or do not represent the two schools of thought of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics we also propose some fields of research that can help to bridge the gaps amongst sustainability economics researchers while clearly marking others that are more suitable for a scientific competition of ideas key results of the study are we identify two primary scientific clusters one clearly confirming the existence of the ecological economics school of thought and the other largely capturing the neoclassical environmental view yet there are some surprising exceptions both schools of thought share a conceptual definition of sustainability that is integrative in considering ecological societal and economic dimensions three pillar concept and is geared at preserving the development potentials of society we also find a shared critique of pure economic growth strategies in our sample these shared opinions may provide bridging concepts between the schools of thought also both clusters agree with respect to a wide range of future fields of sustainability economics research yet the research agenda of the ecological economics cluster contains a large number of additional topics primarily related to social distributional and evolutionary aspects of sustainable development strong divides between the clusters that seem to be more suitable for a scientific competition of ideas are primarily related to the question of how to achieve sustainability including appropriate environmental policies

ecological economics and scientific controversies lessons from some recent policy making in the eec abstract contrasting the very limited scientific evidence on the forest dieback issue with the sudden adoption of policies on air pollution decided in the frg 1983 1984 and extended to the european community 1985 we propose an interpretative framework for the real internalization process at work in what was tantamount to a social crisis for public opinion the media and political actors we conclude that open scientific controversies on some environmental issues effects causes solutions pave the way for some actors to use the issue for their own techno industrial strategies quite alien to ecological constraints in cases of very high uncertainties on impacts it becomes impossible to apply conventional social cost benefit analysis scba as an optimizing tool we propose to develop economic analysis as a negotiation language and to give pride of place to the value of learning time and to the crucial role of technological pluralism as a condition for flexibility in the future

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

kids or cash exploring charter school responses to declining government revenues while the literature is extensive on school districts revenue sources less research has been done on the impact of donations on school district funds in this paper we extend the theoretical literature on crowding out of private donations by government grants for one type of nonprofit firm namely charter schools the theoretical model leads us to focus on the key relationships among fundraising effort enrollment which is tied to federal and state funding and donations using a dataset on texas charter schools we adopt a two stage approach to examine the empirical relationship between changes in nondonor revenues and the donations received by charter schools like the extensive empirical estimates of the effects of government grants on donations for other types of nonprofit firms we find evidence of crowding out with respect to our sample of charter schools we also find a significant positive effect of fundraising on donations with a 1 increase in fundraising associated to a 0 58 increase in donations a pattern consistent with overinvestment in fundraising enrollments exhibit a robust inverse relationship to changes in nondonor revenues jel h00 h32 h50

export led development labour market conditions and the distribution of income the case of singapore the newly industrialising countries nics of east asia have attracted considerable attention in recent years and the impressive economic performance of the gang of four hong kong taiwan singapore and south korea in particular has played an important part in what little 1982 describes as the resurgence of neo classical economics in development thinking the experience of these outward looking export oriented economies is contrasted with the record of the more inward looking import substituting policies adopted by many other less developed countries ldcs and is interpreted as confirmation of the neoclassical thesis that economies which permit the market mechanism to establish a structure of equilibrium prices and incentives can expand in accordance with their comparative advantage generating significant employment gains rapid economic growth and improvements in income distribution the employment gains represent the predictable consequences of the expansion of labour intensive manufactured exports as little 1981 notes in his comparative study of south korea taiwan hong kong and singapore the major lesson is that labour intensive export oriented policies were the prime cause of an extremely rapid and labour intensive industrialisation p 42 the employment intensity of the export oriented industrialisation eoi strategy is in turn seen as the central factor behind improvements in income distribution thus balassa 1982 argues that gains in employment may also be obtained as exports increase the demand for labour and thereby improve income distribution p 59 fields 1984 reiterates the point quite simply if everyone in the labour force is employed at a market clearing wage inequality is less than if some are employed at higher than market clearing wages and others are unem ployed and earn nothing p 81 minimum government intervention has facilitated the efficient operation of the market fields 1984 for example regards the difference in wage setting processes supply and demand in the east asian nics institutional wage

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

theories of non profit institutions abstract as thoughtful modelling and empirical research of non profit enterprises continues to grow two general views of non profit organizations are emerging one view is that non profit firms are inefficient and wasteful another view is that non profit firms are a response to market failure and thus may improve efficiency the purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical and empirical work that represents the current divided state of thinking in this area

the revealed objective functions of nonprofit firms although assertions have often been made about the objectives underlying the behavior of nonprofit firms there has been no empirical confirmation of these assertions this article proposes a way to infer a nonprofit organization s objective function by estimating the marginal donative product of its fundraising panel data estimates derived by using hildreth and houck s 1968 random coefficients model suggest that welfare education and arts firms are service maximizers that health firms are budget maximizers and that the objective of research firms cannot be ascertained within the family of objective functions considered

sustainability economics as a contested concept sustainability economics as a concept is interpreted differently in different publications some authors look for a modification of mainstream neoclassical economics while the present author regard

externality or sustainability economics abstract in an effort to develop sustainability economics baumgartner and quaas 2010 neglect the central concept of environmental economics environmental externality this note proposes a possible connection between the concepts of environmental externality and sustainability in addition attention is asked for other aspects of sustainability economics namely the distinction weak strong sustainability spatial sustainability and sustainable trade distinctive sustainability policy and the ideas of early sustainability economists i argue that both sustainability and externalities reflect a systems perspective and propose that effective sustainability solutions require that more attention is given to system feedbacks notably other regarding preferences and social interactions and energy and environmental rebound the case of climate change and policy is used to illustrate particular statements as a conclusion a list of 20 insights and suggestions for research is offered

clarifying the epistemology of corporate sustainability abstract business research is placing increasing focus on the relationship between the natural environment and the political concept of sustainable development within this nexus one area labelled corporate sustainability emphasizes the interactions between economic environmental and social values the need to consider multiple values has contributed to a blur in the conceptual landscape this is partly due to the fact that authors often address epistemological challenges on an implicit level moreover hidden ideologies e g the profit maximization paradigm can explain the conceptual obscurity the contribution of this article is twofold firstly a conceptual framework is developed based on the dichotomy of positivism and constructivism a relation is established between these epistemological positions and the analytic treatment of environmental and social values the framework can be applied to increase transparency on epistemological challenges and thereby strengthening construct validity in the field secondly an analysis of the most influential literature from the last 50 years shows that there is a trend of clustering theoretical positions and value constructs without any critical awareness of their philosophical assumptions the authors hope that acknowledgement of a multi paradigmatic approach can help to clarify the epistemology of the research area by establishing pluralism as an explicit position

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 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

ideals versus dollars donors charity managers and government grants this paper demonstrates how changes in untied lump sum government grants or income from unrestricted endowments will affect the behavior of charities operated by managers with strong philosophical or professional commitments an increase in such funds will reduce the charity s accountability to private donors and lower its fund raising activities the grant will not be spent entirely on raising the quantity of output instead it will permit the charity manager to reduce his or her dependence on the costly solicitation of donors who do not completely share the manager s preferences in order to understand nonprofit charities one must recognize both their diversity and the independent role of their managers in furthering this diversity we will miss much of their special character if we view them as mere conduits seeking faithfully to reify the wishes of their contributors in this paper i demonstrate how an increase or a fall in untied lump sum government grants or income from unrestricted endowments will affect the behavior of charities operated by managers with strong philosophical or professional commitments to some service mixes rather than others an increase in such funds will reduce the charity s accountability to private donors and lower its fund raising activities the grant will not be spent entirely on raising

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

towards an ecological economics of sustainability abstract persistent disagreement both as to the interpretation to be given to sustainability and as to the relation between ecological and economic sustainability has hindered the development of an ecological economics of sustainable resource use this paper identifies the main concepts of sustainability deriving from the two disciplines in order to explore the difference implied by an ecological approach to the problem it is argued that present economic and ecological approaches are largely disjoint and that they address basically different phenomena by combining the efficiency requirements of what is usually thought of as economic sustainability with the stability requirements of an ecological approach it is shown that an intertemporally efficient allocation of resources that satisfies the conditions for constant levels of consumption is not necessary to assure ecological sustainability ecological sustainability requires that the allocation of economic resources should not result in the instability of the economy environment system as a whole

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

flexible specialization and small size the case of caribbean tourism abstract if export industrialization was fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s today flexible specialization is definitely in appealing to the very heart of the developing world traditional small scale and craft production flexible specialization has become the new passport to development this article cautions that the prescription of small scale flexible specialization piore and sable 1984 leads to a very dangerous kind of optimism in the developing world the danger lies in equating flexibility with small size this is because small size may not be necessary and certainly is not a sufficient condition for flexible specialization the keys to flexible specialization lie elsewhere in information technology applications networks synergies systems gains scope economies production and organizational flexibility not in small size this argument is developed with reference to the caribbean tourist industry a comparative analysis of jamaica s superclub hotel chain and italy s benetton textile company is undertaken this is done with a view to determining the factors in the success of their flexible specialization strategies implications for policy are drawn out

entitlements missing markets and environmental uncertainty reply abstract at one level dore and ward seem intent on immunizing received doctrine they say that i did not prove that rights violated nozick s principles of justice and that i did not prove that missing markets were the problem more telling they allege i did not prove that my story was better than the particular story favored by dore and ward that is they argue that there is an alternative approach based on the theory of public economics which is indeed operational 3 they then use the bulk of their comment to explain and defend this alternative model they hope to convince the reader that the model of public economics survives intact in the face of my alternative model to the extent that their model allows one to define the problem away it is not difficult to see why they find it so compelling more seriously dore and ward fail to make a coherent argument about the concept of rights and duties and the logic of a particular rights structure that happens to prevail they seem concerned that my article was tampering with some sacred social construct the status quo rights structure and that my article threatened the received wisdom of both public economics and paretian walrasian bliss indeed theirs seems to be a genuine fear that if economists release their grip on the certitude of received orthodoxy the floodgates will be open to all manner of bumbling regulators seeking to shift rights and wealth positions across generations my article is apparently threatening because it seems to suggest that the received wisdom may at times be misleading

caricom countries and appropriate technology abstract caricom governments believe that the growth and development of regional economies depend upon export oriented production moreover they are liberalizing their trade regimes in this environment some writers are urging them to adopt a more appropriate namely labor intensive technology this paper contends that the commitment to export oriented production the liberalization of trade regimes the shortage of financial resources and the poverty of regional infrastructure preclude the adoption of a labor intensive technology it therefore concludes that within the context of caricom the most appropriate technology is the most recent which is also the most capital intensive

between ostrom and nordhaus the research landscape of sustainability economics abstract we survey the emerging research area of sustainability economics through a quantitative full text analysis of peer reviewed journal publications from 1987 to 2013 to identify relevant contributions we draw on existing definitions of sustainability economics for a keyword based identification strategy a combined focus on a the human nature relationship b the long term uncertain future c normative orientation towards sustainability and d economic analysis our analysis of a random subsample of 343 relevant papers reveals that i sustainability economics is a rapidly developing research area ii while theoretical contributions shaped the area in earlier years applied work now constitutes the largest share of contributions iii the research landscape can be clustered into eleven research clusters these range from participatory governance of social ecological systems associated with the work of elinor ostrom to questions of intertemporal allocation and distribution applied to climate economics associated with the work of william nordhaus iv the research area is broad in scope and heterogeneous and there is relatively little interaction between important clusters v relevant contributions are published in more than 100 journals ten journals publish half of all contributions led by ecological economics and 40 appear in non economics journals underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue

charity donations in the uk new evidence based on panel data abstract this paper presents a set of panel data estimates for 159 of the most prominent uk charities for the period 1983 1990 in evaluating alternative specifications we settle on a fixed effects estimation social welfare charities are shown to fund raise short of the point at which net revenues are maximized whereas health and overseas charities are found to net revenue maximize religious charities maximize total revenues estimates of price and fund raising elasticities are presented for charities overall and for four cohorts for alternative income sources no evidence of crowding out is found

use and usefulness of sustainability economics abstract sustainable development is at the roots of sustainability economics baumgartner and quaas 2010 define sustainability economics as the combination of economic efficiency and justice in the distribution of nature s services van den bergh in press criticizes their approach as axiomatic and incomplete lacking a discussion of environmental externalities and dogmas like the gdp dogma the focus on non measurable welfare or happiness in both articles impairs the use and usefulness of their sustainability notions for applied economics and policy alternatively environmentally modified national accounts offer a quantifiable sustainability concept of produced and natural capital maintenance for practical reasons sustainability economics should therefore deal with sustainable economic performance and growth coordination with other social goals has to be left to politics

the location of export oriented foreign direct investment in the caribbean basin this paper analyzes the location of export oriented manufacturing investment the analysis focuses on direct investment in the caribbean basin using micro data for all reported manufacturing plant openings from 1984 87 we test a broad range of influences on country selection and compare the results with the existing literature on foreign direct investment in less developed countries the probability of country selection was estimated with a conditional logit model the estimates were then used to predict the location of caribbean basin investments made in 1988 and 1989 twelve independent variables were tested six variables had a statistically significant positive relationship with plant location per capita gnp exchange rate devaluation the length of income tax holidays the size of free trade zones political stability and manufacturing concentration negative relationships were found for the wage rate inflation rate transportation cost and profit repatriation restrictions

does it matter who your buyer is the role of nonprofit mission in the market for corporate control of hospitals abstract the hospital industry is one of this country s largest mixed industries with for profit nonprofit and government hospitals operating in the same local markets but how do ownership types differ previous studies have compared costs among different hospitals however these studies have not been entirely successful because costs cannot be meaningfully compared without controlling for hard to measure quality of service in this study we look to the market for corporate control or takeovers for evidence of ownership related differences we find that nonprofit and for profit firms pay different prices and that these differences relate to the nonprofit s mission specifically nonprofits and for profits pay the same price when buying for profits but nonprofits pay less when buying a like minded nonprofit so religious nonprofits pay less for other religious nonprofits for example the resulting dual price equilibrium suggests that nonprofits have a different objective than do for profits but

the concept of weak sustainability abstract this paper surveys the links between growth theory with exhaustible resources and the concept of weak sustainability it examines the underlying assumptions behind this concept and questions the usefulness of the weak sustainability index as an indicator of sustainable development

a note on sustainability economics and the capability approach sustainability economics attempts to reconcile efficiency criteria with those of social justice in a context of environmental concern this article aims at highlighting the fact that the capability approach offers an interesting perspective for the foundation of sustainability in economics it primarily focuses on the major role that freedom brings as a normative basis for well being and adds new insights for our understanding of human and environment relationship through the study of the constraints and opportunities that affect the individual the final section of this article asks us to reconsider our nature conservation choices by acknowledging the restrictive impact that they have on individual freedoms

can caricom countries replicate the singapore experience this article tries to ascertain whether caricom countries1 can replicate the economic success of singapore based on export oriented industrialisation whereas it is possible for caricom countries to increase exports of some manufactures to industrial countries the article contends that export oriented policies currently urged upon caricom countries will not effect a replication of the singapore experience in an age of growing protectionism rapid technological change an inadequate indigenous social infrastructure and existing labour relations in the region

automation and the worldwide restructuring of the electronics industry strategic implications for developing countries abstract governments in developing countries are placing a high priority on the development and expansion of an export oriented electronics industry thus the structural change and technological transformation currently being experienced throughout the world will have major implications for their success due to the oligopolistic nature of the internationalization process in this industry the use of computerized and automation technologies in electronics manufacture is likely to penetrate into a very select group of third world industrial growth poles in asia latin america and the middle east the extent and location of this penetration will be largely controlled by the oecd based multinationals consequently the expected positive developmental effects may be diminished and limited to those few growth poles these new constraints must be understood by ldc governments in order for them to implement countervailing strategies

partners in giving the crowding in effects of uk government grants abstract this study examines the determinants of voluntary donations to uk charities using empirical specifications that combine error component and simultaneous equations methods in a series of tests we identify the one way fixed effects endogenous representation for government grants as the best empirical model when this endogeneity is taken into account government grants cause significant crowding in for the full sample and the two largest cohorts price coefficients are negative and fund raising coefficients are positive religion charities are net revenue maximizers whereas other charity cohorts fund raise short of net revenue maximization

a cross country input output analysis of intersectoral relationships between manufacturing and services and their employment implications abstract the paper examines the nature and the evolution of intersectoral relationships between manufacturing and services at different stages of industrialization as revealed by a cross country comparative analysis of input output tables of 26 countries at different income levels this paper suggests among many other findings that the intersectoral relationships between manufacturing and services generally characterize asymmetrical dependence namely service activities tend to depend on the manufacturing sector as a source of inputs to a far greater extent than vice versa moreover the employment absorptive capacity of the manufacturing sector is seriously underestimated when one only measures the direct employment effect of the manufacturing sector and ignores the intersectoral demand of the manufacturing sector for service inputs and its income induced demand for various types of services in effect the capability of the service sector to generate and sustain a high level of employment critically hinges upon its vital linkages with the manufacturing sector

are we consuming too much this paper articulates and applies frameworks for examining whether consumption is excessive we consider two criteria for the possible excessiveness or insufficiency of current consumption one is an intertemporal utility maximization criterion actual current consumption is deemed excessive if it is higher than the level of current consumption on the consumption path that maximizes the present discounted value of utility the other is a sustainability criterion which requires that current consumption be consistent with non declining living standards over time we extend previous theoretical approaches by offering a formula for the sustainability criterion that accounts for population growth and technological change in applying this formula we find that some poor regions of the world are failing to meet the sustainability criterion in these regions genuine wealth per capita is falling as investments in human and manufactured capital are not sufficient to offset the depletion of natural capital

sustainability economics where do we stand abstract environmental economics which is a branch of resource economics the environment as a scarce resource is essentially about market failures the costs of pollution and pollution abatement and the economics of regulation sustainability economics includes the problem of maintaining economic growth while reducing pollution and or its impacts with special attention to the linked problems of energy supply not to mention the supply other exhaustible resources climate change and most urgently fossil fuel consumption there is a need for integration of resource and environmental economics under a new rubric sustainability economics

the textile and clothing industries under the fifth kondratieff wave some insights from the case of hong kong abstract this paper proposes that the world s textile and clothing industries have become increasing vertically disintegrated with a few flexible production regions the cream portion engaging in creative innovative dynamic and high value added activities and an expanding number and spatial extent of regions the cake portion taking part in low value added activities in between is an artificial layer protected by the international regulatory framework this layer has characteristics of both the cream and cake layers on the one hand the labor force in this layer suffers from low job mobility and low paid blue collar work of the cake portion and is dominated by female semi skilled workers on the other hand industrialists and governments in this layer enjoy the profits and high export values of the cream portion under the fifth kondratieff wave the textile and clothing industries have become increasingly coordinated and controlled by a thinner cream layer over time regions in the cake portion will find it increasingly difficult to transform themselves into cream because of deep seated structural and geographic differences

clothing chips and competitive advantage the impact of microelectronics on trade and production in the garment industry abstract this paper presents the results of a research project which examined the impact of microelectronics on the nature of production and the patterns of international trade in the clothing industry empirical evidence is given on the effects of microelectronics related innovations currently being used by clothing manufacturers in the developed countries radical innovations have been introduced in the pre assembly stage which have revolutionized this phase of production in contrast the introduction of microelectronics into assembly technology is still limited as a result the clothing industry remains reliant on labor intensive techniques that place it at a competitive disadvantage compared to low wage developing countries hence the determinants of international competitive advantage in the industry remain largely unaltered however due to increasing concentration and major new r d efforts in the public and private sector it is argued that the preconditions are being laid for a fundamental structural and technological transformation of the industry in the north which could have very important implications for the competitive position of third world clothing exporters emphasis is also placed upon the continued restraining effects of protectionist barriers imposed by the main importing nations and on the differential impact of this on the ability of newer entrants to achieve rapid and sustained export growth

can the east asian model of development be generalized abstract export led growth has become increasingly popular among analysts and some governments as a development strategy besides contrasting its virtues to the distortions of the import substitution model popular through the 1960s advocates of the model frequently illustrate its merits by pointing to the remarkable success of its most prominent practitioners the east asian gang of four hong kong korea singapore and taiwan this study explores a possible limitation of the model known as the fallacy of composition while the model may work well if pursued by a limited number of countries it may break down if a large majority of developing countries seeks to pursue it at the same time because the resulting outpouring of manufactured exports might be more than western markets could absorb protectionist response might be the result of attempts to generalize the east asian export model of growth

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

sustainable development in a post brundtland world not yet two decades after the publication of our common future the world s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly nonetheless we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development sd as guiding institutional principle as concrete policy goal and as focus of political struggle remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global order yet how sd is conceptualized and practiced hinges crucially on the willingness of scholars and practitioners to embrace a plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of development and efforts to open up a continuum of local to global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability embracing pluralism provides a way out of the ideological and epistemological straightjackets that deter more cohesive and politically effective interpretations of sd using pluralism as a starting point for the analysis and normative construction of sustainable development we pay particular attention to how an amalgam of ideas from recent work in ecological economics political ecology and the development as freedom literature might advance the sd debate beyond its post brundtland quagmire enhanced levels of ecological degradation vast inequalities in economic opportunities both within and across societies and a fractured set of institutional arrangements for global environmental governance all represent seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a move towards sustainability while these obstacles are significant we suggest how they might be overcome through a reinvigorated set of notions and practices associated with sustainable development one that explicitly examines the linkages between sustainability policies and sustainability politics

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

agency costs in environmental not for profits we examine the behavior of not for profits using utility maximization this leads to testable hypotheses regarding the costs of agency associated with the activities of not for profits our tests are similar to those previously employed regarding not for profit objectives but our interpretation is different our empirical test uses data on environmental groups unlike previous studies biased toward a finding of service maximization we account for endogenous explanatory variables a weak statement of our results is that managers of environmental groups derive positive marginal utility from expenditures for purposes other than providing services there may also be empirical support for a stronger conclusion

ends in view the capabilities approach in ecological sustainability economics while traditional scientific endeavor seeks to avoid the problem ecological economics and the broader emergent field of sustainability economics e se are explicitly grounded in a particular ethico moral assertion one that defines sustainability as a normative notion about the way how humans should act towards nature and how they are responsible towards one another and future generations baumgartner and quaas 2010 p 445 thus e se is neither a purely positive science nor is it a purely normative endeavor but it is what has been called relevant science baumgartner and quaas 2010 p 447 a key objective of e se is therefore said to be to study how ecosystems and human activity interrelate in terms that extend beyond functional and descriptive analysis of this interrelationship and towards explicitly incorporating this normative vision the result that is aimed for is a discipline that is constituted as the best possible approach to the science and management of sustainability

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

the developmental state government and singapore s economic development since 1960 abstract government interventionism is widely acknowledged to characterize less developed countries but consensus is lacking as to whether it promotes economic development and if so how the present article analyzes the nature of government involvement in the singapore model of economic development and emergence of a developmental state closely associated with this model it compares singapore s experience with south korea s and taiwan s where government also contributed to development success and with other asian countries where government failed to play a strong developmental role

intergenerational resource rights efficiency and social optimality the discipline of economics is generally defined as the science of the allocation of scarce resources between competing social objectives given an initial distribution of resources between economic agents how would they behave so as to improve their welfare according to the pareto criterion the agents would exchange commodities until the opportunities for fruitful exchange were fully exhausted and no agent could be made better off without rendering at least one other agent worse off pareto efficiency is a powerful concept in microeconomic analysis provided that the initial distribution of property rights is equitable allocative efficiency gives rise to the best of all possible worlds acknowledging that the assumptions of perfect competition are often violated firms are monopolistic information is incomplete and externalities exist economists have argued for the modification of institutions so that economic reality will conform more closely to the assumptions of the model that yields such gratifying results but microeconomic theory has always maintained that allocative efficiency is in itself insufficient to maximize social welfare bator 1957 a social welfare function is required to discriminate a social optimum among the array of efficient allocations that correspond to alternative assignments of property rights though economists have posited alternative functional forms for the sake of pursuing conceptual arguments welfare functions have remained elusive constructs for well known theoretical and practical reasons consequently a sharp line of demarcation has been drawn between questions of efficiency the province of economics and equity the principal focus of ethical and political discourse in resource economics however the line demarcating efficiency and equity is often crossed the term optimal depletion appears regularly where only efficient depletion is meant while political debates about resource exploitation over time are laden with questions of the proper distribution of our natural patrimony between generations resource economists have predominantly espoused particular use rules that guarantee efficiency but overlook potential improvements in social welfare achievable through the reassignment of property rights across generations we document the evolution and current status of the misuse of the term optimal depletion in section ii we develop a simple two generation three period general equilibrium model in section iii to illustrate how alternative distributions of resource rights between generations relate to alternative pareto efficient solutions in section iv we demonstrate how different social welfare functions affect the optimal solution and associated assignment of resource rights between generations

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