NEW HORIZONS IN ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

This text features a study which examines 22 countries across four continents including both developed and developing economies. It looks at the impact of climate change on agriculture and provides a good analytical basis for additional work.

Contingent valuation analysis is both a difficult and controversial means of environmental resource valuation. Yet many economists regard it as the only valid means of measuring values in environmental policy. This major new book features papers examining the current state-of-the-art-in the valuation of environmental resources and, in particular, the meaningfulness of environmental resource values obtained through the contingent valuation method. An internationally prominent group of scholars develops a fuller understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology and discusses a research agenda to improve estimates of environmental resource values. Economic valuation obtained through the survey measurement of consumer preferences is central to their discussion. The authors describe how practitioners, critics, and users of contingent valuation have framed the fundamental issues that must be solved if the approach is to gain wider acceptance. The current state-of-the-art is outlined in a series of core papers and then debated in discussion papers. Issues covered include the need for a broad perspective in valuation research, support for replication studies, the relationship between survey structure and survey responses, the processes by which environmental resources affect individual well-being, specific issues regarding environmental goods in surveys, and better tests of internal and external validity.

The Economics of Pollution Control in the Asia Pacific adapts environmental economics to the special conditions of the Asia Pacific region, emphasizing the importance of local conditions and culture. Global warming, air pollution and water pollution are all addressed by a distinguished group of authors who rigorously apply economics to the analysis of pollution control in societies undergoing rapid industrialization. As this pioneering volume demonstrates, citizens of rapidly developing Taiwan and Korea are willing to pay substantial amounts for the protection and improvement of air and water quality, and face potentially huge losses from global climate change. A number of the papers also point to some cost effective alternatives for helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emission.