Justifying, characterizing and indicating sustainability

Springer

2007

xii, 305 p.

Sustainability, Economics, and Natural Resources ; 3

9786613934185

Contents: Justifying Sustainability -- Economic Analysis of Sustainability -- Intergenerational Ethics Under Resource Constraints -- Justifying Sustainability -- Resolving Distributional Conflicts Between Generations -- The Malleability of Undiscounted Utilitarianism as a Criterion of Intergenerational Justice -- Rawlsian Intergenerational Justice as a Markov-perfect Equilibrium in a Resource Technology -- Unjust Intergenerational Allocations -- Characterizing Sustainability -- The Hartwick Rule: Myths and Facts -- Hartwick's Rule in Open Economies -- Capital Gains and ‘Net National Product' in Open Economies -- Characterizing Sustainability: The Converse of Hartwick's Rule -- On the Sustainable Program in Solow's Model -- Maximin, Discounting, and Separating Hyperplanes -- Indicating Sustainability -- Green National Accounting for Welfare and Sustainability: A Taxonomy of Assumptions and Results -- Net National Product as an Indicator of Sustainability -- Adjusting Green NNP to Measure Sustainability -- Does NNP Growth Indicate Welfare Improvement? -- A General Approach to Welfare Measurement through National Income Accounting -- Green National Accounting with a Changing Population.

In 1987 the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) introduced the concept of sustainable development into the political agenda. The notion of sustainability and the need to understand its full implications have sparked much interest and considerable research in various disciplines, including economics. This volume brings together 18 articles published during the last 20 years, devoted to understanding the concept of sustainable development. These articles provide economic analysis of this notion from three different perspectives: Justifying Sustainability (why care about whether development is sustainable) Characterizing Sustainability (what does sustainable development look like) Indicating Sustainability (how to tell whether development is sustainable) The first part (Justifying Sustainability) analyzes from a normative point of view why it is desirable for our generation to contribute to the implementation of sustainable development. The second part (Characterizing Sustainability) describes how manmade capital (both real and human) must be accumulated in order to make up for decreased availability of natural capital. The third part (Indicating Sustainability) examines rules and methods for attaining sustainable development for current and future generations. Each part begins with an article which functions as a survey. An up to date introduction serves to tie the three parts of the volume together.

Английский