Alistair Ulph - Böcker

This timely collection explores the highly topical area of international trade agreements and environmental policy. It focuses in particular on two key aspects of the international dimension of environmental policy: with trans-frontier environmental problems, such as climate change and acid rain, it is necessary for countries to enter into international environmental agreements to overcome incentives for free-riding; and even if pollution were simply a domestic concern, countries are linked via trade, thus environmental policies will impact upon the international competitiveness of certain sectors of an economy.The individual chapters fall into four Parts, which attempt to answer the following questions:1. How can international environmental agreements be designed to increase the number of countries that might join such agreements?2. If it is possible to reach an environmental agreement among only a small number of countries, how should environmental policies by the parties to the agreement be designed to reduce the extent to which reductions in pollution by the signatories are offset by increases in emissions by non-signatory countries?3. When a country increases the stringency of its environmental policies, are the impacts on trade and welfare larger when account is taken of scale economies and imperfect competition in international markets than was thought to be the case from earlier studies based on the assumption of competitive markets for international trade?4. Do national governments have incentives to distort their environmental policies to gain strategic advantage, and if so, what form might this take and what does this imply about the sovereignty of nations in choosing environmental policies?Employing both theoretical analysis and empirical modelling, "Environmental Policy, International Agreements, and International Trade" aims to advance understanding of some of the key issues surrounding the links between trade and the environment. It will appeal to all those with an interest in environmental issues and international trade.

If global society is to address the many environmental and other sustainability challenges that confront us in the twenty-first century, such as climate change and water resources, it will be necessary to make significant changes in our patterns of consumption, production, and distribution. There is a growing realization that while changes in production and distribution are formidable, the proposed solutions may not succeed unless it is possible to persuade individuals and households to change their patterns of consumption to make them more sustainable. However there are significant differences in how key disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, and history conceptualise consumption, empirically test their theoretical predictions, and use these to inform policy-makers across the private, public and third sectors on how to make consumption more sustainable. This book contains chapters from world-leading experts in these different disciplines that seek to explain the perspectives on sustainable consumption of their disciplines, suggest how these might be further enriched by taking on board some of the findings from other disciplines, and consider what this implies for new policies to address the key sustainability challenges outlined above. The book is dedicated to Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, one of the world's leading economists who has worked across a range of topics, including environmental and resource economics and development economics, and throughout his career has sought to incorporate into his economic thinking ideas from a range of other disciplines.