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Markets and the Environment
A clear grasp of economics is essential to understanding why environmental problems arise and how we can address them. So it is with good reason that Markets and the Environment has become a classic text in environmental studies since its first publication in 2007. Now thoroughly revised with updated information on current environmental policy and real-world examples of market-based instruments, the primer is more relevant than ever.
The authors provide a concise yet thorough introduction to the economic theory of environmental policy and natural resource management. They begin with an overview of environmental economics before exploring topics including cost-benefit analysis, market failures and successes, and economic growth and sustainability. Readers of the first edition will notice new analysis of cost estimation as well as specific market instruments, including municipal water pricing and waste disposal. Particular attention is paid to behavioral economics and cap-and-trade programs for carbon.
Throughout, Markets and the Environment is written in an accessible, student-friendly style. It includes study questions for each chapter, as well as clear figures and relatable text boxes. The authors have long understood the need for a book to bridge the gap between short articles on environmental economics and tomes filled with complex algebra. Markets and the Environment makes clear how economics influences policy, the world around us, and our own lives.
The authors provide a concise yet thorough introduction to the economic theory of environmental policy and natural resource management. They begin with an overview of environmental economics before exploring topics including cost-benefit analysis, market failures and successes, and economic growth and sustainability. Readers of the first edition will notice new analysis of cost estimation as well as specific market instruments, including municipal water pricing and waste disposal. Particular attention is paid to behavioral economics and cap-and-trade programs for carbon.
Throughout, Markets and the Environment is written in an accessible, student-friendly style. It includes study questions for each chapter, as well as clear figures and relatable text boxes. The authors have long understood the need for a book to bridge the gap between short articles on environmental economics and tomes filled with complex algebra. Markets and the Environment makes clear how economics influences policy, the world around us, and our own lives.
328 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 10, 2013
This was the text for EVSP 502 Environmental Economics.
p. 55. The scale of environmental problems in capitalist economies like the United States often pales next to the devastation wrought in socialist economies like the former Soviet Union.
p. 84. Many people assume that natural resources have infinite value. But economics does not,
p. 86. Stanley Jevons, a renowned nineteenth century British economist, predicted in a book called The Coal Question that as Britain depleted its coal reserves, its economic power would decline precipitously. Jevons failed to account for the fact that an increase in the price of coal would spur the development of alternative sources, new extracting technologies, and greater efficiency in coal use, and he failed to anticipate the rise of oil and natural gas as alternative fuels.
p. 92. When resources are limited, current consumption comes at the cost of foregone potential future consumption. The present value (at the margin) of these foregone future consumption opportunities is marginal user cost, or scarcity rent.
p. 114. Notice that the fishery is economically overfished before it is biologically overfished. This will always be true because fishing is costly.
p. 115. Here again, actors in a market generate costs (fish depletion) that are external to the transactions between buyers and sellers. No individual fisher has an incentive to account for the externality of depletion of the fish stock
p. 136. A tax on pollution equal to the marginal damage at the socially efficient level of pollution will achieve the socially efficient outcome.
p. 137. What is the Optimal Gasoline Tax? . . . They found that the Pigouvian tax reflecting marginal external costs would be eighty-three cents per gallon in the United States. . . . Taxing gasoline, therefore, is just an (imperfect) proxy for taxing miles driven.
p. 138. The marginal cost and benefit functions look an awful lot like supply and demand curves.
p. 139. The role of government policy, then, can be understood as filling in the missing demand curve.
p. 140. In effect, a tax on pollution amounts to charging firms for what they would pollute in the absence of regulations, and then paying them back for every ton they abate. . . . The tax and the cap-and-trade policy are essentially different ways of getting to the same point.
p. 197. Concerns about distributional equity could be addressed by combining drought pricing with income transfers.
p. 198. In contrast, drought pricing involves simply changing the price of water.
p. 199. . . . the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and we have determined that the two main causes are farming upstream of the Mississippi Delta and municipal sewage plant discharge from cities in the delta.
p. 55. The scale of environmental problems in capitalist economies like the United States often pales next to the devastation wrought in socialist economies like the former Soviet Union.
p. 84. Many people assume that natural resources have infinite value. But economics does not,
p. 86. Stanley Jevons, a renowned nineteenth century British economist, predicted in a book called The Coal Question that as Britain depleted its coal reserves, its economic power would decline precipitously. Jevons failed to account for the fact that an increase in the price of coal would spur the development of alternative sources, new extracting technologies, and greater efficiency in coal use, and he failed to anticipate the rise of oil and natural gas as alternative fuels.
p. 92. When resources are limited, current consumption comes at the cost of foregone potential future consumption. The present value (at the margin) of these foregone future consumption opportunities is marginal user cost, or scarcity rent.
p. 114. Notice that the fishery is economically overfished before it is biologically overfished. This will always be true because fishing is costly.
p. 115. Here again, actors in a market generate costs (fish depletion) that are external to the transactions between buyers and sellers. No individual fisher has an incentive to account for the externality of depletion of the fish stock
p. 136. A tax on pollution equal to the marginal damage at the socially efficient level of pollution will achieve the socially efficient outcome.
p. 137. What is the Optimal Gasoline Tax? . . . They found that the Pigouvian tax reflecting marginal external costs would be eighty-three cents per gallon in the United States. . . . Taxing gasoline, therefore, is just an (imperfect) proxy for taxing miles driven.
p. 138. The marginal cost and benefit functions look an awful lot like supply and demand curves.
p. 139. The role of government policy, then, can be understood as filling in the missing demand curve.
p. 140. In effect, a tax on pollution amounts to charging firms for what they would pollute in the absence of regulations, and then paying them back for every ton they abate. . . . The tax and the cap-and-trade policy are essentially different ways of getting to the same point.
p. 197. Concerns about distributional equity could be addressed by combining drought pricing with income transfers.
p. 198. In contrast, drought pricing involves simply changing the price of water.
p. 199. . . . the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and we have determined that the two main causes are farming upstream of the Mississippi Delta and municipal sewage plant discharge from cities in the delta.
March 15, 2023
Markets and the Environment takes multiple different current events, not all exclusively related to the environment, that each merit considerate analyses from economic, geographical, ecological, legal, and moral lenses, and rotely applies the same perverse neoliberal logics to each of these issues, concluding at every turn that all is well as long as "markets are injected into as many places" on earth as possible.
There are a few interesting tidbits in the book––but its weak discussion of concepts such as willingness to pay and its lack of attention to things like linkages, secondary effects, and distributional problems, renders the analysis so shallow that it cannot at all be taken seriously as a piece of rigorous scientific research.
Overall, the book is fine--it is decently written and covers a lot of neat world issues, but it should be taken with many pinches of salt.
There are a few interesting tidbits in the book––but its weak discussion of concepts such as willingness to pay and its lack of attention to things like linkages, secondary effects, and distributional problems, renders the analysis so shallow that it cannot at all be taken seriously as a piece of rigorous scientific research.
Overall, the book is fine--it is decently written and covers a lot of neat world issues, but it should be taken with many pinches of salt.
June 25, 2024
First came across this during my 4000-level Environmental Economics class, but oddly enough I reference the theory in this quite frequently
November 27, 2016
I'm a bit late writing a review for this particular book. This is one that I'll be more than happy to dump from my collection in the future once I knock out the final project in the graduate certificate program I'm in. This book was extremely academic and is not light reading for anyone as far as I can tell. There would be much more interesting things for you to read unless you're reading for work or school. Economics, while important, has got to be the most boring field in existence and adding the word "environmental" before the word "economics" does not do a great deal to make it any better.
I almost rated this two stars but at the last minute had to bump it to three because it wasn't bad as far as textbooks go, it was just terrible as far as reading for fun would go by a normal person's standard.
I almost rated this two stars but at the last minute had to bump it to three because it wasn't bad as far as textbooks go, it was just terrible as far as reading for fun would go by a normal person's standard.
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January 19, 2016interesting points about environmental economics, and how natural resources or common goods are handled; taxes and scarcity; all on a micro-economic level. my only criticism is that the writing isn't all that clear to follow, whereas Moshe Adler's book, "Economics for the Rest of Us" felt like it was being read to me.
The last chapter on the macro picture, on economic sustainability, could really reframe the entire book if presented in the beginning chapter(s).
The last chapter on the macro picture, on economic sustainability, could really reframe the entire book if presented in the beginning chapter(s).
Read
April 5, 2009This book is very academic, thus I have a hard time giving it a number of stars...but for a somewhat-textbook it was very good! The authors explained environmental economics from a basic level to a more complex level with many real life examples throughout the book. It can be a good refresher book if you already understand the topic or a good introduction if you don't.
April 3, 2019
This book presents an overview of the application of economics to the solution of environmental issues. It’s focus is on how one develops market-based solutions at the lowest costs to both business and the consumer including those impacted by the problem. The book is concise and comprehensible by those not versed in economics.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews