Green Accounting Bibliography: January 2002
This page contains all items published in the selected month. January archives also include entries for the entire year when the exact month of publication is unknown. The page for January 1990 includes everything published prior to that year.
Citations
Mitchell, Alanna. "GDP value must reflect eco-wealth, report says," The Globe and Mail, 7 January 2002, p. A1. [newspaper]
North Americans must radically alter the way they calculate gross domestic product to take into account the use of each country's environmental wealth, says a hard-hitting new report from the international environmental watchdog set up under NAFTA.
Posted by Gernot Wagner on 1/07/2002. 0 comments. Permanent link.
Harris, Michael and Fraser, Iain. "Natural Resource Accounting in Theory and Practice: A Critical Assessment." The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Vol. 46, pp. 139-192, 2002. [abstract and full text (for a fee)]
Abstract: In this paper an extensive review of the theoretical and applied literature on natural resource accounting (NRA) is provided. The review begins by explaining the economic theory that underpins NRA, contrasting welfare and sustainability as policy goals, and presenting various distinct conceptions of national income. The state of play regarding official revisions to the system of national accounts (SNA) with respect to natural resources and the environment is presented and controversial areas are highlighted. Finally the economic literature on proposed revisions, and applied studies that have proceeded using these methods, is summarised and critiqued. We argue that much of the literature proceeds with weak conceptual foundations, and that typical case studies produce results that are ambiguous in interpretation. Moreover, we highlight fundamental tensions between economic theory and national accounting methodology, and conclude that one outcome of this has been the insufficient attention paid by economists to the revisions to the SNA; instead devoting time and effort to 'freelance' NRA case studies utilising sometimes ad hoc methods from the economic literature.
Posted by Gernot Wagner on 1/01/2002. 0 comments. Permanent link.
Daily, Gretchen C. and Katherine Ellison. 2002. The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable, Island Press. [order book]
Synopsis: Why shouldn't people who deplete our natural assets have to pay, and those who protect them reap profits? Conservation-minded entrepreneurs and others around the world are beginning to ask just that question, as the increasing scarcity of natural resources becomes a tangible threat to our own lives and our hopes for our children. The New Economy of Nature brings together Gretchen Daily, one of the world's leading ecologists, with Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, to offer an engaging and informative look at a new "new economy" – a system recognizing the economic value of natural systems and the potential profits in protecting them.
Posted by Gernot Wagner on 1/01/2002. 0 comments. Permanent link.
Banzhaf, H. Spencer and Smith, V. Kerry. 2002. "Green GDP: Adding Environmental Services to an Economy's Scorecard." The Resources for the Future Issue Brief Series on Sustainable Development. [full text]
An 8-page issue brief as well as a 2-page issue backgrounder explaining the basic arguments for environmental accounting.
Posted by Gernot Wagner on 1/01/2002. 0 comments. Permanent link.
Adger, W. Neil; Brown, K.; Cervigni, R. and Moran, D. "The functions and services of Mexico's forests." In: Pearce, D.W.; Pearce, C. and Palmer, C. (eds.) Valuing Environmental Benefits: Case Studies from the Developing World. 2002, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Conclusion: Forests are multi-functional ecosystems with numerous uses by local people and more distant beneficiaries. Failure to recognize and account for these multiple uses have led to the loss of forests observed on the global scale. In economic terms, it is the public good nature of the environmental services which leads to this detrimental resource use. This chapter has demonstrated the economic techniques for valuing these non-marketed services and has applied these techniques to the Mexican forest case. The results show an annual lower bound value of the services of Mexico's forests to be in the order of US$ 4 billion. These values stem from the non-marketed services provided by non-consumptive use; from future potential uses of the genetic resources and from pure existence values; and the largest proportion of economic value coming from the functional values of hydrological and carbon cycling.
Posted by Gernot Wagner on 1/01/2002. 0 comments. Permanent link.