Resource and Environmental Economics

Modern Issues and Applications

This important book deals with the essential principles of resource and environmental economics, provides applications to contemporary issues in this field, and outlines and assesses policies being used or proposed for managing the use of environmental and natural resources. Covering specific contemporary topics such as agriculture and the environment, water use, greenhouse gas management, biodiversity conservation, tourism and the environment, and environmental economics and health, leading issues in resource and environmental economics are outlined and analyzed in an innovative manner. Institutional economics (both new and traditional) is applied and compared with other approaches such as neoclassical economics, behavioral economics and the Austrian School of Economics. This heterogeneous, multi-perspective approach enables problems to be considered from several different angles, thus enhancing the reader's comprehension of the subject matter. Furthermore, using minimal technical jargon, the book takes into account aspects of modern economic analysis such as the costs of and constraints on decision-making and the transaction costs involved in policy implementation.

Contents:

• General Issues:

  • The Nature and Significance of Resource and Environmental Economics
  • Different Types of Approaches to Environmental and Resource Economics
  • Economic Failure in Using Resources and the Environment
  • Property Rights, Laws, Markets and Resource Use
  • Regulating Natural Resource Use and Pollution Emissions
  • Economic Valuation of Environmental Spillovers and Natural Resources
  • Sustainability as an Environmental and Economic Issue

• More Specific Topics:

  • Agriculture, Agricultural Policies and the Environment
  • Water Management
  • Biodiversity Conservation
  • Global Warming, Energy Use and Air Pollution
  • Recycling and Solid Waste Management
  • Health and Environmental Economics

Readership: Academics, undergraduates and graduate students in environmental economics, natural resource economics, ecological economics, environmental management and policy studies.
Key Features:

• Exposes readers to varied ways of viewing and analyzing economic problems arising from environmental and natural resource use by applying established and modern approaches to economics, and provides clear multi-faceted assessments of policies to address these problems. This provides a more balanced approach to the subject than competing texts and enables innovative ideas to be presented
• Provides a concise, well-focused, more selective coverage of the subject compared to many other texts, which enables important principles to be more adequately highlighted
• Uses many diagrams to illustrate the text, with minimal technical jargon
• Includes a set of keywords or concepts, a list of review and discussion questions, and a relevant reading and reference list at the end of each chapter
• Includes material on the economics of environmental health