making green discourses matter in policy making learning from discursive power struggles within the policy area of car taxation abstract this paper is about stability and change in the policy making discourse of a traditional neoclassical policy area the area of car taxation stability is here related to the unquestioned continuation of a traditional neoclassical economics perspective in policy making whereas change is related to the introduction and impact of environmental concerns the aim of the paper is to investigate what makes green discourses matter in traditional policy making it is based on an in depth study of policy making processes related to car taxation in two environmental front runner countries sweden and denmark making green discourses matter in policy making is an important contemporary environmental challenge therefore as tian shi argues we need more research into the institutional setting of the policy making process ecological economics as a policy science has to have a broad understanding of the political economic nature of the policy process taking this standpoint as the point of departure the paper seeks to uncover questions such as what is the policy making reality in which swedish and danish green discourses have to make a difference how do existing neoclassical regimes react when green actors attempt to influence policy making from an environmental point of view and to what extent can green discourses actually have an impact on the policy world within the area of car taxation the paper concludes that the traditional neoclassical economic discourse is particularly robust and resistant against alternative green discourses stability rather than change is the dominating picture this does not imply that environmental concerns will not be taken into account in the future rather it implies that only the changes which keep up the existing order or enhance the narrow power related interests of the dominating actors will materialise more or less easily the rest is a power struggle in which timing coalition building persistence and thorough knowledge about the field in question is of importance in this struggle change agents will also benefit from the ability to rethink dominating ways of thinking and doing in an environmentally benign way a rethinking that is based on environmental values while at the same time holding positive visions that are compatible with the existing dominating discourse

mass migrations income inequality and ecosystems health in the second wave of a globalization abstract this paper compares conditions for intercontinental migrations during the first and the second globalization waves and proposes a system model describing basic relationships between migrations income inequality economic growth and environment the model suggests that in a situation where a strong asymmetry in economic power and wealth dominates global economic and political relations further trade and migration liberalization may have predominantly negative impact on southern natural systems while solving little or nothing of the poverty problems in the north uncontrolled immigration may in the long run produce economic social and probably ethnic tensions which costs could by far exceed the medium term benefits rejuvenation of active population and reduction in the strain imposed on the pension system

intention of agricultural professionals toward biofuels in iran implications for energy security society and policy abstract this research applies the health beliefs model hbm as a framework for understanding the intentions of agricultural professionals with respect to biofuels we argue that it is essential to understand these intensions as agricultural professionals play critical role as educators gatekeepers and stakeholders in the agricultural domain a face to face survey was undertaken in south western iran using a multi stage stratified random sample of agriculture professionals n 288 the reliability and validity of the instruments were examined and approved structural equation modeling showed that general beliefs regarding fuels and biofuels perceived benefits perceived severity self efficacy and cue to action are significant predictors of professionals willingness to support biofuels these variables can predict nearly 43 variance in professionals willingness the findings yield public policy implications for biofuel use and development support among professionals and provide preliminary support for the hbm as an effective framework for examining intention toward biofuels among agriculture professionals in iran

developing effective policies for the sustainable development of ecological agriculture in china the case study of jinshan county with a systems dynamics model abstract this paper focuses on a search for concrete policy measures to facilitate the overall sustainability of ecological agricultural development at a county level for this purpose a system dynamics model aiseem has been developed to explore the potential long term ecological economic institutional and social interactions of ecological agricultural development through a case study of jinshan county in china the model provides an experimental platform for the simulation and analysis of alternative policy scenarios the results indicate that the diversification of land use patterns government low interest loans and government support for training are important policy measures for promoting the sustainable development of ecological agriculture at least in the case study context in addition the study reveals that environmentally sound technology e g biogas project alone cannot sufficiently induce farmers to adopt ecological agricultural practices limited availability of information risk aversion and high transaction costs are major barriers to the adoption of alternative agricultural practices in this regard the importance of capacity building and institutional arrangements are emphasised through the development of an improved policy making process on agricultural sustainability this case study highlights the importance of combining the ecological economics analytical framework with the system dynamics modelling approach as a feasible integrated tool to provide insight into the policy analysis of ecological agriculture and thus set a solid basis for effective policy making to facilitate its sustainable development on a regional scale

a framework for scaling and framing policy problems in sustainability abstract it is argued that a necessary but lacking component of our approach in seeking policy responses to sustainability issues is some repeatable means whereby the relative magnitude and characteristics of these various policy problems faced in a given context can be analysed and described to this end a simple and tentative framework is constructed based on the definition of the key attributes which shape policy problems pertaining to environmental change these are spatial scale of cause and effect magnitude timing and longevity of possible impacts reversibility mensurability complexity and connectivity nature of cause s relevance to the given polity tractability availability and acceptability of means public concern and existence of goals these attributes inform a general taxonomy of micro meso and macro problems the attributes and the taxonomy are described with supporting examples to illustrate possible application of the framework it is discussed briefly in the contexts of operationalising the precautionary principle and policy instrument choice it is concluded that the framework can help focus debate and operationalise vague principles introduce relativity into the notion of sustainability and make policy choice more efficient

young citizens knowledge and perceptions of bioenergy and future policy implications abstract in the past few years extensive discussions on bioenergy has been both positive and negative in europe the image of bioenergy appears to be low with lack of broad public support previous studies show that younger people are unsure about many issues surrounding renewable energy the aim of this study was to investigate the knowledge and perceptions of bioenergy among pupils in north karelia finland data drawn from 495 ninth grade students indicate that the majority of them lack in depth knowledge about different renewable energy sources including bioenergy only a small percentage has a high level of knowledge about bioenergy and the majority indicates critical perceptions of it statistically significant gender differences are not apparent girls appear to be more knowledgeable than boys results also show a clear urban and rural difference in perceptions of bioenergy perceptions of urban respondents being more positive than that of their rural counterparts developing collaboration between future bioenergy policies and bioenergy education for younger citizens is necessary for their engagement in critical debates on bioenergy

conscientious vs ambivalent consumers do concerns about energy availability and climate change influence consumer behaviour abstract energy availability and climate change are interrelated concerns with economic components they need to be addressed by policy makers and they require changes in energy consumption this study examines whether concerns about energy availability and climate change influence consumer behaviour policy perceptions and beliefs about future energy consumption this question is investigated by analysing data from the eurobarometer 75 4 a comprehensive survey of citizens from all countries of the european union that was conducted in june 2011 n 26 840 the regression results show that people concerned about climate change were significantly more likely to take action to mitigate climate change and to be more favourably disposed towards energy policies and future changes in energy consumption than people who were not concerned about climate change on the other hand people who were concerned about energy availability undertook fewer actions and neither supported energy policies nor believed in future changes in energy consumption this surprising finding raises questions regarding the adequate communication of energy availability and policies to the public in the european union

exchange rate volatility and u s monetary policy an arch application this paper examines the effect of shifts in u s monetary policy regimes on the stochastic process that generates foreign exchange rates to account for the observed behavior of the data record the author models nominal dollar exchange rates as univariate autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic processes he then tests the stability of this process across u s monetary policy regimes for four of the currencies in the sample accounting for regime shifts improves the fit of the model regime shifts also appear to diminish the degree of persistence of variance making it less likely that exchange rates are integrated in variance copyright 1989 by ohio state university press

planning for sustainability as a learning concept abstract the major theme of the following discussion is the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to guide sustainability related planning and management activities the proposed approach involves much more than the usual interaction between partners from different disciplines a revised process is needed to allow real cooperation in sustainability planning this process will require a more open recognition of the subjective priorities that become the framework of sustainable development issues of various interest groups and disciplines the sustainable development agenda should be more geared towards learning processes than projected future outcomes learning is enhanced through a participatory framework inclusive of stakeholder interests insights from a broad range of disciplinary areas including the science of complexity sociology philosophy law economics and management are presented to support this position the conventional stranglehold of disciplinary thinking in policy circles limits the capacity of our decision makers to unravel the complexity of all real world environmental policy and management problems policy making needs to embody respect for that complexity and allow flexibility to promote perpetually evolving learning as a fundamentally transdisciplinary framework ecological economics has some prospect to represent these interests in a purposeful and necessarily pragmatic way

labeling renewable energies how the language surrounding biofuels can influence its public acceptance abstract despite growing interest and investments in biological fuels little is known of how the public form opinions toward this alternative fuel technology this study examines public opinion of biofuels by focusing on several factors that can be expected to influence citizens opinions about the issue first we tested the results of a framing experiment that was embedded within a public opinion survey this experiment explored how the public responded to the term biofuels as compared to the term ethanol our results suggest that overall respondents tended to react more favorably to the former as opposed to the latter term second we examined the impacts of sociodemographics on public attitudes toward biofuels we found that while sociodemographics did little to consistently explain attitudes toward biofuels there was clear evidence of ideological influences on attitudes with self identifying democrats showing more positive attitudes overall finally we explored the interaction between political partisanship and our experimental manipulation we found evidence that our wording manipulation differed based on the political party identification of our respondents with democrats fluctuating greatly in their assessments depending upon whether they were asked to evaluate biofuels or ethanol

from rational actor to efficient complexity manager exorcising the ghost of homo economicus with a unified synthesis of cognition research it is now commonplace to note that economics canonical model of humans as rational self interested utility maximizers homo economicus is both descriptively misleading and often insufficiently predictive however certain outdated assumptions tied to homo economicus persist often influencing discourse and research design even in sustainability oriented fields we argue this ghost of homo economicus endures because the diversity of findings that confound the canonical model has surfaced across multiple behavioral and cognitive sciences each with its own terminology and focus area as such a unified accessible synthesis of this new information has yet to emerge in this paper we review recent insights from across the behavioral and cognitive sciences and propose an efficient complexity manager ecm model homo efficens as the best synthesizing option the crux of this model is that our species works within biological limits to efficiently filter massive environmental complexity this is achieved largely through analogical or case based reasoning we explain this synthesized model using a series of accessible metaphors finally we speculate on how this model may enrich future sustainable development research insofar as it points to fruitful units of analysis can stimulate methodological innovation and provide a more explicit theoretical foundation for the field

different ways of knowing a communicative turn toward sustainability abstract despite the urgency of the ecological crisis the steady continuation of environmental degradation suggests that new ways of interpreting problems and acting with environmental integrity may need to be considered this paper draws on a broad range of contemporary theory to argue that the conventional conceptualization of environmental problems has remained a largely disciplinary based exercise that has relied on abstracting the environmental issues from their real world complexity a practical articulation of the main environmental narratives reveals self referential discourses whose disciplinary based practices have insulated these approaches from a broad range of contemporary theorising and different ways of knowing the dominance of these approaches in environmental policy development has led to the continued acceleration of environmental degradation despite widespread political and social interest in its abatement this paper provides a critique of methodologies derived from the assumptions of instrumental rationalism and contemplates the potential for alternative communicative approaches and strategies for dealing with environmental policy development and implementation it is argued that a communicative approach to planning for sustainability represents a more appropriate strategy for mobilising a currently impotent environmental movement a communicative approach by explicitly dealing with the assumptions and motivations of contested positions in the sustainability debate it is argued offers the most pragmatic way of developing change strategies to deal with the complex issues surrounding environmental policy development and implementation

oecd organisational discourse peer reviews and sustainable development an ecological institutionalist perspective as part of the recent ideational turn in research on international organisations the study of organisational discourse has gained popularity yet ecological economics has thus far paid little attention to the role of organisations as sites for the discursive battles over the meaning of sustainable development for an international organisation without regulatory powers such as the oecd organisation for economic cooperation and development discourse is the main vehicle for policy influence but it also plays a key role in re defining the organisation s identity and authority the oecd s organisational discourse has been strongly dominated by modern mainstream economics and has given little room for marginalised discourses this paper compares from the perspective of institutionally oriented ecological economics ioee and borrowing from critical discourse analysis the experience from attempts to integrate the concept of sustainable development within two oecd peer review mechanisms the economic surveys and the environmental performance reviews the extent to which the respective conceptions of sustainable development in the two reviews are in line with the principles of ioee and the reasons for the apparent failure of sustainable development discourse to gain foothold within the organisation are analysed

discursive ethics in ecosystems valuation and environmental policy abstract discursive ethics has its origin in the frankfurt school of critical theory as an applied ethic it is also associated with practical philosophy in this paper discursive ethics is discussed as a conceptual and practical framework for ecosystems valuation and environmental policy the discussion focuses on three main strengths of discursive ethics 1 it offers an integrated process for ecosystems valuation 2 it offers a decision making framework for responding to uncertainty and risk and the reality of action in indeterminacy 3 it offers a process for deconstructing common valuation concepts and identifying conditions for their critical reconstruction the theoretical discussion is followed by a case study example which illustrates the usefulness of discursive ethics in identifying valuation biases hidden behind disciplinary assumptions and conceptual norms these include cultural norms of rationality information biases which consider hard facts over soft values and disciplinary valuation biases which distinguish between hard and soft expert contributions as the case study illustrates a successful application of discursive ethics in ecosystems valuation and environmental policy demands sensitivity to such underlying biases beyond its policy relevance discursive ethics may also offer a framework for an extended peer discourse through which new foci in research and education can be identified

ecological economics in china origins dilemmas and prospects abstract this paper is a first step towards articulating a chinese version of ecological economics over the last decade ecological economics has attracted increasing attention in the west similarly since the early 1980s scholars in china have undertaken specific research on existing ecological economic issues in accordance with chinese political economic socio cultural and ecological conditions however this endeavor is hardly known in the west and little attention has been given so far to the potential role of chinese attitudes in the international ecological economics movement this paper is designed to make up for that neglect and attempts to address the following questions what social and cultural traditions are required for chinese ecological economics to operate what are the political and institutional implications of ecological economics in china will chinese ecological economists feel comfortable in a society where open debate is viewed as unacceptable behavior in order to clarify the chinese interpretation of ecological economics and its impact on the policy making process a preliminary overview of its emerging background evolutionary history key viewpoints and theories nature and policy influence is presented three major intellectual sources of chinese ecological economics are identified and the theoretical applications are emphasized then some theoretical and practical issues that may arise in future research are discussed along with implications of chinese ecological economics for the international community in addition to biophysical functions and ecological conditions socio political structures and processes need to be explicitly addressed in extending the research agenda of ecological economics

government failure the cause of global environmental mismanagement abstract this paper argues that although pollution may move across national boundaries and polluters are mobile governments should be able to coordinate a sound management of the environment through transfer payments or commitments however governments may respond to political pressure rather than maximize social welfare because pollution tends to hurt large unorganized groups future generations and those who are uninformed there is likely to be a government failure resulting in too little protection of the environment government failure in one country may also reduce the desirable level of cleaning in other countries brief analyses of atmospheric emissions the destruction of the tropical rainforest consumption of tobacco and the development and diffusion of new technology by multinational corporations further suggest that government failure is a major cause of environmental mismanagement it is advocated that an international body should be instituted to compensate for this

ecological economics as a policy science rhetoric or commitment towards an improved decision making process on sustainability abstract with sustainability issues currently attracting increasing political and policy attention this paper examines the impact of the rise of ecological economics in the policy world and its potential influence on the decision making process this study emphasises that ecological economics development is coevolved with and modified to fit specific social economic political and cultural contexts as a policy science ecological economics is context sensitive and action oriented explaining why it is so and what to do about it has become imperative for ecological economists this paper attempts to address the questions such as what are the macroeconomic conditions and political processes that make the formulation and implementation of ecological economic policy possible how should this alternative social reality engage with the dominant decision making process does ecological economics provide the necessary means for prescribing policy measures to achieve sustainable development endeavouring to understand these dimensions of ecological economics has been a dynamic social process and understanding this complex process might provide an opportunity to bridge the divide between policy rhetoric and reality in practice rather than maintain the status quo in order to achieve an improved decision making process on sustainability it highlights the imperative to explicitly study the institutional setting through which sustainable development policy discourse is mediated

feminism ecology and the philosophy of economics abstract the contemporary discipline of economics pays little heed to either the natural environment or to the work of women a review of the literature on the historical development of western concepts of self and science shows that this is not coincidental rather than suggesting that ecological economics reinforce the identification of women with nature however feminist thought suggests that dualistic thinking about men and women humans and nature can be should be replaced with a fuller picture of human identity and knowledge

spatially uneven development and low carbon transitions insights from urban and regional planning the ageing of existing energy system infrastructure the threat of climate change and uncertainty in the movement of energy prices have resulted in a widespread agreement on the need for a transition to a low carbon energy system yet the nature of this transition i e what when how and where and its socio economic outcomes at different scales are not well understood the interdependence of the energy sector and economic growth has been mostly studied at the national level via some general equilibrium or econometric models whilst sub national studies at community or urban levels mostly focus on the governance of transitions hence we suggest that a regional perspective to energy policy and research promises to integrate these two approaches by providing a more robust and comprehensive understanding of the implications of low carbon transitions as well as contributing to the development of more effective policies by building on recent ideas on geographical aspects of energy transitions this article offers insights on the changing relationship between the spatial organisation of economic activities and energy systems and identifies tools and methods from urban and regional planning to help with the delivery of efficient and equitable policy outcomes

rational expectations econometric analysis of changes in regime an investigation of the term structure of interest rates abstract this paper is of interest both for its methodological contribution of new tools for analyzing rational expectations models and for its substantive conclusions concerning the term structure of interest rates during the monetary experiment of october 1979 the paper studies systems subject to changes in regime interpreted here as occasional discrete shifts in the parameters governing the time series behavior of exogenous economic variables the specification is shown to be quite tractable both theoretically and empirically the technique is used to analyze yields on three month treasury bills and ten year treasury bonds during 1962 to 1987 a constant parameter linear model for short term rates is shown to be inconsistent both with the univariate time series properties of short rates and with the observed bivariate relation between long and short rates under the expectations hypothesis of the term structure an alternative nonlinear model that admits the possibility of changes in regime affords a much better description of the univariate process for short rates moreover the cross equation restrictions implied by the expectations hypothesis of the term structure are consistent with the nonlinear specification indeed the residuals of the restricted relation have a standard error of only 0 8 basis points this is a third less than that of a completely unrestricted linear regression of long rates on short rates and compares with an unconditional standard deviation of long rates of 142 basis points i conclude that once the recognition by bond traders of changes in regime is taken into account the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates holds up fairly well for these data

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

scientific methodology for ecological economics abstract positivist philosophy has dominated scientific research throughout most of the twentieth century positivism has been discredited within the philosophy of science but this has only had limited impact on research practices in the social and natural sciences economists have called for the adoption of positivism in economics however economic methodologists have noted that this application has not taken place and because of the limitations of positivism it is unlikely that it will take place ecological economists should learn from the methodological failures of economics and look for alternatives since the 1970s several alternative paradigms to positivism have emerged post normal science and constructivism are critically considered and their significance for the discipline of ecological economics is addressed in this paper i propose a modification of the paradigmatic basis of constructivism and suggest that the revised constructivist paradigm should be seriously considered for adoption by ecological economists i also point out that there are complementarities between post normal and constructivist methodologies that deserve further exploration this could enrich the methodological base of ecological economics

more than food or fuel stakeholder perceptions of anaerobic digestion and land use a case study from the united kingdom anaerobic digestion ad is of growing importance within the uk as it can make an important contribution to the countries energy and climate change targets with the growth of the sector discussions about competing land uses are likely to increase for a better understanding of the synergies between agricultural land its role and bioenergy the perception of the different stakeholders will play an important role the perception of stakeholders related to ad feedstock and energy crop production was investigated through interviews and a stakeholder workshop the results indicated that from an ad operator and feedstock producer perspective on farm ad is more an additional activity integrated into existing agricultural systems than a renewable energy technology the risk of a shift in agricultural practices and large areas to grow energy crops for ad is seen as low for the uk nonetheless land use and related challenges need to be considered as the demand for ad feedstocks increases with the fast growth of the sector considering the synergies between bioenergy and agriculture as well as the motivations and benefits perceived by stakeholders will play an important role in a successful policy design to provide the required emission reduction in both sectors without subverting sustainability

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

from the ground up ecofeminism and ecological economics abstract speaking from the margins ecofeminist analysis exposes many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics as gender biased and as anti ecological it identifies the abstract individual of neoclassical economics as a privileged male individual whose apparent autonomy is predicated on the oppression of women marginal people and nature thus ecofeminists tell a different story about economic man from the grounds of others experience up ecofeminism points to the limits of models of sustainability built on extending market rationality to non market spheres of life ecofeminist economics contains a creative tension between a commitment to social justice and a determination not to colonize the wild

what are political leaders environmental intentions the impact of social identification processes and macro economic conditions abstract evidence of continued environmental degradation has led to a questioning of the traditional vision of unlimited economic growth in favour of sustainable development although several explicit environmental strategies were designed at the supranational level the pursuit of environmental sustainability remains an aim driven by political concerns at the country level this study aims to investigate the role of both internal cognitive and motivational factors and external social forces and macro economic conditions contexts in influencing the propensity of political leaders regarding environmental matters the findings indicate that cognitive and motivational factors tend to shape the environmental intentions of political leaders whereas the external context does not have a significant impact our results suggest that the political leaders propensity for addressing environmental matters is largely affected by the desire of leaders to establish or confirm an individual status through political processes or to conform to group norms however younger political leaders demonstrate a higher environmental propensity than do older leaders

persistence in variance structural change and the garch model this article examines the persistence of the variance as measured by the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity garch model in stock return data in particular we investigate the extent to which persistence in variance may be overstated because of the existence of and failure to take account of deterministic structural shifts in the model both an analysis of daily stock return data and a monte carlo simulation experiment confirm the hypothesis that garch measures of persistence in variance are sensitive to this type of model misspecification

the second generation of ecological economics how far has the apple fallen from the tree this paper examines the discourse produced in the academic journal ecological economics from its inception in 1989 and compares this discourse with that of the field of environmental economics i used methods for discourse analysis alceste and iramuteq on 6308 abstracts of papers published in four journals namely ecological economics the journal of environmental economics and management environmental values and environmental and resource economics published between 1989 and 2013 the results suggest that the discourses of ecological economics and environmental economics have grown closer over time the semantic classification of co occurrent terms used in ecological economics indicates increasing significance of the notions of ecosystem services and of monetary valuation i argue that this trend is parallel to costanza s career path which suggests the rise of a tacit recognition of the new environmental pragmatic scientific approach i conclude with some of the implications for ee of promoting this kind of discourse to such an extent

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

rural versus urban preferences for renewable energy developments development of renewable energy resources such as wind farms and hydro electric schemes are being promoted as a new method of expanding and diversifying employment in rural areas however such energy projects are associated with a range of environmental impacts which might be detrimental to other economic activities such as those based on nature tourism the authors use a choice experiment to quantify peoples preferences over environmental and employment impacts that may result from the deployment of renewable energy projects in rural areas of scotland focussing in particular on any differences between the preferences of urban and rural dwellers and on heterogeneity within these groups rural and urban households are shown to have different welfare gains which are dependent on the type of renewable energy technology and on the scale of project under consideration