The Economics of Shallow Lakes

non-linear differential games;ecological systems

Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies

We are interested in three related questions: (1) How should accounting prices be estimated? (2) How should we evaluate policy change in an imperfect economy? (3) How can we check whether intergenerational well-being will be sustained along a projected economic programme? We do not presume that the economy is convex, nor do we assume that the government optimizes on behalf of its citizens. We show that the same set of accounting prices should be used both for policy evaluation and for assessing whether or not intergenerational welfare along a given economic path will be sustained. We also show that a comprehensive measure of wealth, computed in terms of the accounting prices, can be used as an index for problems (2) and (3) above. The remainder of the paper is concerned with rules for estimating the accounting prices of several specific environmental natural resources, transacted in a few well known economic institutions.Sustainable development, Imperfect economies

On institutions that produce and disseminate knowledge

This paper investigates institutions for the creation and transmission of knowledge as efficient resource allocation mechanisms. By looking at Science and Technology it develops a two way classification. Science, is a non market allocation mechanism, where knowledge is treated as a pure public good and where the rule of priority provides an incentive scheme for disclosure. Technology, is a market allocation mechanism, where knowledge is treated as a private good and where patents and copyrights preserve property rights. The distinction between these two entities is based on the institutional arrangements involving the allocation of resources for enquiry, not on the differences in the objects and methods of inquiry. The paper compares the rule of priority and patenting as alternative incentive schemes. It also discusses whether it is optimal for society to preserve two different institutions, partly rival and partly complementary, and examines the major policy implications

Environmental and Resource Economics: Some Recent Developments by

A first draft of this paper was prepared when the authors were visiting the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, during April-May 2004. The current version was completed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in June 2004, while the authors were attending the bi-annual teaching and research workshop of the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). We are most grateful to K. Sreenivasan (Director of ICTP), and Manik Duggar and Priya Shyamsundar (respectively, Programme Manager and Director of SANDEE), for making our visits both possible and most agreeable. Over the years, we have benefited greatly from discussions with Scott Barrett, William Brock, Stev

Food production, population growth, and environmental security

There are two broad criteria by which one can judge humanity's success in feeding itself: (i) the proportion of people whose access to basic nutritional requirements is secure; and (ii) the extent to which global food production is sustainable. Even though the two are related, they have usually been discussed separately in popular writings. This has had unfortunate consequences. Writings on (ii) have often encouraged readers to adopt an all-or-nothing position (viz. the future will be either rosy or catastrophic), and this has drawn attention away from the economic misery that is endemic in large parts of the world today. On the other hand, writings on (i) have frequently yielded no more than the catechism that the nearly 1 billion people in poor countries who go to bed hungry each night do so because they are extremely poor. In short, if (ii) has focused on aggregate food production and its prospects for the future, (i) in contrast has isolated food-distribution failure as a cause of world hunger. In this article we will adopt the view that (i) and (ii) should not be studied separately, that their link can be understood if attention is paid to the dynamic interactions between ecological and economic systems operating primarily at the geographically localised level

The Economics of Shallow Lakes

Mäler, K-G.