Title: Price, principle, and the environment /
Authors: Sagoff, Mark.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Environmental economics; Environmental policy
Abstract: "This book argues that while economic theory can inform the design of institutions and processes for settling disputes, it cannot measure the value of environmental goods. Environmental economics fails as a science of valuation because preference-satisfaction, its normative basis, has no relation to any value not trivially defined in terms of it. It fails because preferences cannot be observed but must be inferred from arbitrary descriptions of behavior. It fails because market prices are settled largely on the supply side and thus do not correlate with consumer benefits. Maximum willingness to pay represents a conceptual will-o'-the-wisp about which people have no estimate even for ordinary purchases.
Contents: Zuckerman's dilemma: an introduction. -- At the monument to General Meade or On the difference between beliefs and benefits. -- Should preferences count? -- Value in use and in exchange or What does willingness to pay measure? -- The philosophical common sense of pollution. -- On the value of wild ecosystems. -- Carrying capacity and ecological economics. -- Cows are better than condos or How economists help solve environmental problems. -- The view from Quincy Library or Civic engagement in environmental problem solving.