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

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

confessions of a malthusian restrictionist abstract the current discussion over the ethical propriety of using environmental degradation arguments to restrict immigration is at an impasse one group argues from a neo liberal globalization perspective and rejects such arguments while the other take a more internationalist approach accepting restrictions i argue that the neo liberal position is seriously flawed since it leads to the elimination of places a morally important category and that from an internationalist view immigration restriction based on environmental degradation is ethically justifiable

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

retrospectives the economics of leon hirsch keyserling the economics of leon h keyserling influenced the roosevelt era in terms of housing agriculture labor and antitrust legislation during the truman era discussed herein keyserling was influential as chair of the council of economic advisors stressing long term growth general and selective fiscal monetary and interest rate policies and the view that economic growth equity and welfare are tied together via a full employment goal thus he was a liberal keynesian and a pragmatist realizing that the keys to prosperity were consumption wages and investment profits

cowboys cornucopians and long run sustainability abstract in the 1970s there was a lively debate on the relationship between natural resource availability and long run economic growth one side has been characterized as neo malthusian it emphasized the limited global stockpile of critical natural resources from cobalt to petroleum and the need to curb population and economic growth the other side of the debate has been characterized as cornucopian it emphasized the creative powers of technology and free markets to find substitutes for any and all scarce resources this paper argues that the original dichotomy was false it did not adequately represent either the real positions of most conservative business and political leaders today nor did it reflect the currently emerging consensus among environmentalists the former do not concern themselves with long run issues at all nor do they take a global view of the problems of mankind rather they argue from the standpoint of short run national and corporate interest environmentalists on the other hand do not fit the neo malthusian world view which emphasizes the role of natural resources and land as factors of production and points to the limited supply of renewable resources and the inevitable exhaustion of non renewables the most important scarcities in the emergent environmentalist world view are largely outside the market domain soil fertility clean fresh water clean fresh air unspoiled landscapes climatic stability biological diversity biological nutrient recycling and environmental waste assimilative capacity there are no plausible technological substitutes for these the irreversible loss of species and ecosystems and the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and of toxic metals and chemicals in the topsoil groundwater and in the silt of lake bottoms and estuaries are not reversible by any plausible technology that could appear in the next few decades finally the great nutrient cycles of the natural world carbon oxygen nitrogen sulfur and phosphorus require that constant stocks in each environmental compartment and balanced inflows and outflows these conditions have already been violated by large scale and unsustainable human intervention

capitalist diversity and de growth trajectories to steady state economies abstract growth critical scholarship has done much to both expose the environmentally unsustainable nature of the capitalist growth economies of the overdeveloped part of the world and to develop an alternative vision of a de growth transition leading to a steady state economy however this scholarship fails to adequately take into consideration that if planned de growth actually materialised it would do so in societies that differ considerably from one another and that this would have implications both for the transition processes and the nature of their outcomes in other words not enough importance is ascribed to capitalist diversity and the nature of institutional change in the growth critical literature against this background the purpose of the present article is to make the concrete utopia of de growth scholars and steady state economists more specific by utilising insights from scholarship on capitalist diversity and institutional change on the basis of a typology of different models of capitalism the article suggests that if de growth transitions took place they would take different forms and lead to a variety of types of steady state economies sses to illustrate this point three ideal typical sses are delineated

an evaluation of medicaid selective contracting in california this study used 1982 1986 data on 262 private community hospitals to evaluate the effects of selective contracting for inpatient services by california s medicaid program selective contracting by medicaid significantly reduced the rate of inflation in average costs per admission and per patient day while slightly increasing average lengths of patient stays private sector contracting also reduced cost inflation rates significantly and caused small non significant reductions in lengths of stays hospital savings in 1986 due to medicaid selective contracting were 836 million 7 6 of what hospital expenditures would have been in the absence of contracting

policy watch government analysis of the benefits and costs of regulation recently congress has shown a greater interest in assessing the economic impact of regulation this interest was driven in part by estimates that federal regulation costs several hundred billion dollars annually in 1996 congress required the director of the office of management and budget to provide estimates of the total annual benefits and costs of individual regulations this essay reviews the increasing use of economic analysis in regulatory decisionmaking critically assesses the first 0mb report and considers how the use of economic analysis can help inform regulatory decisionmaking it argues that policymakers need to address a growing body of evidence that casts doubt on the effectiveness and efficiency of much regulation

medical interventions among pregnant women in fee for service and managed care insurance a propensity score analysis this paper extends earlier research on the effect of managed care on the receipt of four medical interventions for pregnant women ultrasound induction stimulation of birth electronic fetal monitor and caesarean delivery propensity score methods are used to account for sample selection issues regarding insurance choice managed care enrollees are more likely to receive an ultrasound which may be indicative of receiving better prenatal care managed care plans reduce the rate of caesarean deliveries but such limitations may be beneficial given the substantial medical evidence that caesarean deliveries are over utilized the results indicate that insurance coverage does influence treatment intensity but that utilization controls and provider financial incentives do not adversely affect care for pregnant women

georgescu roegen s defense of classical thermodynamics revisited abstract nicholas georgescu roegen s criticisms added to those of physicists and philosophers result in a definitive refutation of boltzmann s claim that his h theorem derives the second law of thermodynamics solely from newtonian mechanics some authors using boltzmann s statistical mechanics go so far as to claim that perpetual motion machines are feasible in principle this is also incorrect modern approaches by ilya prigogine and by the astrophysical school to build thermodynamics on a basis that avoids georgescu roegen s objections are surveyed these conclusions have both epistemological and technological importance for economics this paper emphasizes the former the epistemological argument is 1 the entropy law is an evolutionary law 2 modern neoclassical economics is arithmomorphic 3 arithmomorphic laws cannot capture evolutionary changes 4 hence neoclassical economics cannot incorporate the entropy law s implications for the economic process 5 if one can show that modern physicists use evolutionary laws despite their non arithmomorphic nature then maybe 6 economists will become accepting of evolutionary laws 7 this would be good because the entropy law which is evolutionary point 1 has important implications for economics this paper primarily treats the most unfamiliar point for non physicists point 5

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

provider selection bargaining and utilization management in managed care i introduction the managed care industry is extraordinarily dynamic one of the earliest examples of managed care is the kaiser prepaid group health plan which contracted exclusively with the permanente group to supply health care to a group of beneficiaries the types of contractual arrangements used in managed care plans have since evolved into so many other forms that it is difficult to classify relationships using traditional typologies e g staff versus group or network model health maintenance organization hmo the managed care organization may own the hospital and or physician group the hospital may own the managed care organization or the managed care organization may contract with hospitals and physician groups 1 the large variety of institutional arrangements known as managed care make it necessary for health economists to look inside the black box of managed care and examine not only whether managed care reduces expenditures but also how expenditures are reduced what is relevant for this analysis is not whether a managed care organization calls itself an hmo a preferred provider organization ppo independent physician association ipa or another acronym but how managed care affects expenditures and quality of care managed care organizations generally use three of the tools to reduce expenditures selecting low cost providers bargaining for lower rates and utilization management the economic differences between managed care plans lie in which of these three tools are applied and to what degree thus we can gain insight into modern managed health care by studying the way each of these three components affect cost and utilization this study measures the relative contribution of each managed care tool to changes in aggregate expenditures we study the effect of a managed care program in which there was a change from a fee for service type arrangement to a managed care environment however the concepts and methods in this article can be applied to any situat ion where the network contractual terms or utilization management rules have changed one way that managed care organizations control expenditures and quality of care is to restrict the number of providers in a network we define the effect of selecting certain types of providers as the provider selection effect in other words the provider selection effect is the change in expenditures that can be attributed to the inclusion or exclusion of different providers into the network for example the managed care organization may select providers with a history of less intensive treatment patterns and avoid providers with a history of highly intensive treatment patterns the change in future expenditures that are due to selection of low or high intensity providers is the provider selection effect with respect to utilization similarly the difference in rates at providers before the new rates are bargained is defined as the provider selection effect with respect to price in summary the provider selection effect measures the effect of selecting types of providers on subsequent expenditures it does not measure how rates or utilization patterns change at a given provider over time after providers are selected to be in the network the managed care organization may try to achieve expenditure reductions by bargaining over prices and utilization management changes in reimbursement rates over time for a given provider are defined as the bargaining effect and changes in utilization over time are defined as the utilization management effect the bargaining effect is the change usually reduction in prices that is a result of bargaining with the managed care organization in order to be included in the network although it is possible that managed care organizations negotiate other aspects of the contract our investigation of this industry has revealed that bargaining over prices is by far the most important in terms of changes in expenditure

the limited political influence of ecological economics a case study on dutch environmental policies abstract although the ecological economics ee discourse attempts to influence environmental policy empirical studies have concluded that its success in this endeavour has been limited thus far in the netherlands however two ee related policy concepts environmental utilisation space and ecological footprint were strongly present in environmental policy during certain periods in time but subsequently disappeared from the environmental agenda the central question of this article is how these ups and downs of the ee concepts can be understood which factors determine their rise on and fall from the policy agenda over time to answer this question this article offers a conceptual model informed by the approaches in political science on framing agenda setting and knowledge utilisation we conclude that the interplay of concept specific characteristics the formation of coalitions around the concept and contextual variables explain the rise and fall of the aforementioned concepts a match between the dominant policy frame and the core elements of the concept provides the opportunity for the two concepts to be pushed on the agenda we observe the alternation of constraining frames which allows for ee concepts to survive and reconciling frames which block agenda entrance for ee concepts furthermore the alternation of these frames seems to correlate with economic and public environmental attention cycles in the netherlands

reimbursing health plans and health providers efficiency in production versus selection the tradeoff between an insurer s or medical provider s incentives to select good risks and to produce efficiently is governed by the supply price analog to the demand price tradeoff between moral hazard and risk aversion under a variety of models the optimum supply price is a mixture of capitation and fee for service payments empirical literature shows that pure capitation payment leaves strong incentives for selection that are acted upon the presence of contracting costs in a rothschild stiglitz model means a limited pooling equilibrium can exist and that poor risks will not be at their preferred outcome

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

environmental technological change and governance in sustainable development policy abstract an evolutionary economics perspective between technological innovation and public policy is applied to analyse the relationships between technological change sustainable development and industrial competitiveness this leads us to emphasise the fundamental role that firm s strategies vis a vis the endogenisation of technological change can play for giving effect to win win strategies however allowing industrial competition to become the only factor determining win win strategies could lead to locked technological and social options being chosen which do not contribute to overall goals of ecological social and economic sustainability for this reason we introduce as complements to competitiveness the requirement of new forms of governance in pursuit of ecological economic sustainability

neoclassical and institutional approaches to development and the environment abstract institutional economics is suggested as a more fruitful approach to environmental problems than the now dominant neoclassical paradigm the historical background of institutionalism in the united states and europe is given as well as the main characteristics of this approach i e holism emphasis on institutional arrangements pattern modelling and emphasis on the political element of economics differences between neoclassical and institutional economics are elaborated with respect to the concept of economics reductionist versus holistic the approach to decision making aggregated versus highly disaggregated and the view of social and institutional change public choice versus actor network approach

ecological economics in relation to democracy ideology and politics two recent studies and policy documents are discussed in the present article one is a un report prepared by experienced politicians as input into the 2012 rio de janeiro conference the other a st

a bibliometric account of the evolution of ee in the last two decades is ecological economics becoming a post normal science abstract in ecological economics the debate on formalism and formalization has been addressed in the context of a lively discussion on ecological economics as a post normal versus normal science using ecological economics ee as a seed journal and applying bibliometric techniques to all 2533 the articles published in ee from january 1989 to december 2009 we analyze the evolution of the field of ecological economics aiming to shed light on this debate we observe the predominance and increased relevance of certain research topics methodological issues policies governance and institutions and valuation moreover collective action technical change and the environment and values stand as emergent themes of research finally we note that ecological economics experienced an empirical turn reflected in a shift away from exclusively formalized papers towards exclusively empirical and to a larger extent formal and empirical ones the combination of the prominent and emergent topics and the empirical turn mirrors the increasing awareness among researchers in the field of the need to address a key specificity of ecological economics the interdependence of the economic biophysical and social spheres on this basis we argue that at least through the lens of ee ecological economics has evolved towards a post normal science

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

between a rock and a soft place ecological and feminist economics in policy debates abstract the field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand and discussions of normative values and visions for society on the other using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative hardness and softness of these two sides this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique between space in order to better inform policy the current crisis of global climate change it is argued requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement while ecological thinkers need to re examine beliefs about markets and profit

entropy law and exhaustion of natural resources is nicholas georgescu roegen s paradigm defensible abstract i examine whether the entropy law dictates absolute limits to growth i distinguish the entropy law proper diffusion without coherent work from its application the carnot cycle diffusion with coherent work while the entropy law pertains to mechanistic systems the carnot cycle is the result of purposeful agency since the economic process is carried out by purposeful agency to generate coherent work it is not governed by the entropy law rather it resembles the carnot cycle resources hence cannot be defined objectively a la the entropy law resources can only be defined relative to the purposeful agency thus the prognosticators of doom like georgescu roegen cannot be bolstered by the entropy law

do differences in presidential economic advisers matter using data on members on the council of economic advisors as well as us treasury secretaries and omb directors from 1952 through 2005 i investigate the effect of economic advisors educational and employment backgrounds on the time series performance of several policy variables ivy league advisors appear to raise non defense government spending although the size of the impact differs by president while voter preferences appear to matter for a wider variety of policy variables changes in federal regulation and marginal tax rates the share of ivy league advisors is at least as important as voter preferences in explaining non defense spending

valuing cattle on mixed smallholdings in the eastern amazon abstract cattle on smallholder farms are kept for socio economic reasons rather than physical production which explains why farmers favour low input and discontinuous management to find out how this form of livestock husbandry relates to the other main farming sub systems cattle keeping was compared with cassava and black pepper production data was collected from 37 cattle keeping mixed smallholdings during 15 visits at monthly intervals the three sub systems were studied in terms of productive efficiency of resource use socio economic contribution and ecosystem friendliness using cash flow non market output and non parametric rankings their relative performances in each domain were ranked and put on an amoeba diagram a general method of system description and assessment the markings connected across functions produced an outline of a polygon reminding the shape of an amoeba it was found that productive efficiency was lowest in cattle benefit cost ratio was highest in cassava while return to labour was especially strong in black pepper production the highest status lowest production risk highest liquidity and ease of sale related to cattle cattle and pastures ranked worst in terms of biodiversity damage to and pollution of water courses nutrient losses were highest in cassava due to the large amount harvested the differences in function meant that the three polygons occupied different segments of the circular diagram nevertheless together they formed a well rounded shape the amoeboid nature of these polygons can be used to predict the effect of a shift of activity on the farm making the diagram a useful illustrative tool for planning and teaching

a successful accident recollections and speculations about the cea as originally conceived the president s council of economic advisers would have a unique relation with the president using keynesian analysis to advise him on maintaining full employment after fifty years the council has evolved into being a useful cog in a large decision making apparatus dealing with the whole range of federal problems of economic policy and bringing to bear whatever economics has to say the initial keynesian predisposition has faded the council has participated in some mistakes but it has made a valuable contribution primarily by persistent representation of the value of the free market

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

celestial bodies and satellites energy issues models and imaginaries in denmark since 1973 abstract this article uses the history of macroeconomic energy modelling in denmark as a case for presenting a theoretical framework which describes issues publics and imaginaries as an important nexus for energy policy the story evolves around the actions tensions and entanglement of two publics the traditionalist and the environmentalist and presents macroeconomic modelling as an instrument for issue articulation and the construction of energy policy imaginaries the article concludes that macroeconomic modelling is an effective instrument for articulating the economic realities of energy policy and that economic growth plays a key role in these articulations by determining the basic preconditions for collective imaginaries of energy system futures

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