Quantitative Eco-nomics (eBook)

Part I: Questions, Questions, Questions.- 1. What on Earth is wrong?- 1:1 Paradise lost.- 1:2 Environmental doomsday and international reaction.- 1:3 Reaching the limits?- 2. What’s economics got to do with it?- 2:1 Economics out of sync?- 2:2 Schools of eco-nomic thought.- 2:3 Economic sustainability: maintaining capital and welfare.- 2:4 Ecological sustainability: dematerialisation.- 3. Sustainable development – blueprint or fig Leaf?- 3:1 What is development?- 3:2 Towards an operational definition of sustainable development.- 3:3 Normative economics for sustainable development?- Part II: Assessing the Physical Base of the Economy.- 4. Statistics and indicators.- 4:1 Statistical frameworks.- 4:2 From statistics to indicators ‘for’ sustainable development.- 4:3 Global warming: the indicator ‘of’ (non)sustainable development?- 5. Aggregation: From indicators to indices.- 5:1 Aggregation methods.- 5:2 Indices of environmental sustainability and sustainable development.- 5:3 Critique: towards a ‘balanced’ approach.- 6. Energy and material flow accounting.- 6:1 Rationale: social metabolism and environmental sustainability.- 6:2 Energy accounting.- 6:3 Material flow accounting.- Part III: Greening the Economic Accounts.- 7. Linking the physical and monetary accounts.- 7:1 Measures of economic welfare and wealth.- 7:2 Extending the national accounts: incorporating nature’s assets.- 7:3 Hybrid accounts: expanding the production boundary.- 8. SEEA – the System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting.- 8:1 Pricing the priceless.- 8:2 SEEA objectives, structure and indicators.- 8:3 Case studies.- 8:4 SEEA revision.- 9. Corporate accounting: accounting for accountability.- 9:1 From accountability to accounting.- 9:2 From accounting to management.- Part IV: Analysis – Modelling Sustainability.- 10. Diagnosis: has the economy behaved sustainably?- 10:1 Welfare secured? Dematerialised? Capital maintained?- 10:2 What are the causes? Structural analysis of environmental impact.- 11. Prediction: will economic growth be sustainable?- 11:1 Econometrics: the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis.- 11:2 Simulation of non-sustainability: the Limits-to-Growth model.- 12. Policy analysis: can we make growth sustainable?- 12:1 Environmental policy measures in general equilibrium and input-output analysis.- 12:2 Environmental constraints and optimality – a linear programming approach.- 12:3 Dynamic analysis: optimality and sustainability of economic growth.- Part V: Strategic Outlook.- 13. Strategies: tackling the limits to growth.- 13:1 Ignoring the limits: muddling through.- 13:2 Complying with limits: curbing economic activity.- 13:3 Pushing the limits: eco-efficiency.- 13:4 Adopting limits: sufficiency, corporate social responsibility, environmental ethics.- 14. Globalisation and global governance.- 14:1 Sustainability effects of globalisation.- 14:2 Global governance for sustainable development.- 15. Questions, questions, questions – and some answers.- 15:1 What’s the problem?- 15:2 What’s economics got to do with it?- 15:3 How bad is it?- 15:4 What can be done?- 15:5 Some non-conclusive answers.- Annexes.- I. Market failure and environmental cost internalisation – a primer.- II. Economic rent and natural resource depletion.- III. SEEA Germany – a pilot case study.- References.- Index.- Colour Plates.