Geoffrey Heal - Böcker

With issues like global warming and the loss of biodiversity becoming increasingly important to policymakers and scientists worldwide, the issue of sustainability cannot be ignored as we move toward the twenty-first century. Not surprisingly, the sustainable management of the biosphere has in recent years been the subject of much attention among ecologists, environmental engineers, and other members of the scientific community. Yet although these issues are clearly rooted in economic behavior and organization, the question of sustainability is not one that has been addressed directly by economists. Now, with Valuing the Future, economist Geoffrey Heal presents a coherent framework for understanding the earth's future from an economic perspective. Heal's model begins with a reconciliation of the economist's and environmentalist's time horizon: in economics, discussions of "the long run" generally refer to a much shorter timeline than do those of the earth sciences. The book shows the benefits of viewing the environment as an economic asset that should be understood as a part of a nation's income and explains how this approach can lead to more conservative patterns of resource use.Stepping beyond merely theoretical generalities, Valuing the Future offers a dynamic new blueprint for comprehending sustainability. Chapters provide complete mathematical templates for the valuation of a depletable stock and of renewable resources, the proper calculation of national income, and the conduct of cost-benefit analysis. It will be of great value to economic theorists, environmental economists and policymakers, providing a powerful new model for scientists concerned with environmental sustainability.

Markets are increasingly central to the resolution of environmental problems. They played a critical role in implementing the 1990 Clean Air Act of the United States, which has been instrumental in reducing acid rain in a cost-effective manner. They are also central to the global strategy adopted for limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and are being used for resolving conflicts over the use of other environmental resources, particularly water. Environmental Markets: Equity and Efficiency represents the first systematic and in-depth study of the economic issues raised by this growing use of environmental markets. Focusing on the relationship between equity and efficiency-which is central to many of the debates between industrial and developing countries-the book explores the underlying economics and the possibilities for win-win solutions that benefit all parties to the problems. Graciela Chichilnisky and Geoffrey Heal have been instrumental in developing the economic understanding required for the operation of environmental markets and for promoting their use among policy makers leading to the Kyoto Protocol.Contributors to this volume include established experts from international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and academia, including Raul Estrada-Oyuela, who chaired the negotiating committee of the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto meetings.

Stories of predatory lending practices and the reckless destruction of the environment by greedy corporations dominate the news, suggesting that, in business, ethics and profit are incompatible pursuits. Yet some of the worst lenders are now bankrupt, and Toyota has enjoyed phenomenal success by positioning itself as the green car company par excellence. These trends suggest that antisocial corporate behavior has its costs, especially in terms of the stock market, which penalizes companies that have poor environmental track records and rewards more socially conscious brands. The political context of our economy is rapidly changing, particularly in regard to incentives that operate outside the marketplace in a strict and narrow sense and involve interactions between corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), activist groups, regulatory bodies, consumers, and civil society. These interactions can significantly color a corporation's alternatives, making socially or environmentally harmful behavior much less attractive.British Petroleum, for example, has voluntarily reduced its greenhouse gas emissions over the past ten years, Starbucks, has changed the environmental impact of its coffee production, and Nike and other footwear and textile makers now monitor the labor conditions of their subcontractors. When Principles Pay jumps headfirst into this engaging and vital issue, asking whether profit maximization and the generation of value for shareholders is compatible with policies that support social and environmental goals. Geoffrey Heal presents a comprehensive examination of how social and environmental performance affects a corporation's profitability and how the stock market reacts to a firm's social and environmental behavior. He looks at socially responsible investment (SRI), reviewing the evolution of the SRI industry and the quality of its returns. He also draws on studies conducted in a wide range of industries, from financials and pharmaceuticals to Wal-Mart and Monsanto, and focuses on the actions of corporations in poor countries.In conclusion, Heal analyzes how social and environmental performance fits into accounting and corporate strategy, presenting an executive perspective on the best way to develop and implement these aspects of a corporation's behavior.

In the decades since Geoffrey Heal began his field-defining work in environmental economics, one central question has animated his research: "Can we save our environment and grow our economy?" This issue has become only more urgent in recent years with the threat of climate change, the accelerating loss of ecosystems, and the rapid industrialization of the developing world. Reflecting on a lifetime of experience not only as a leading voice in the field, but as a green entrepreneur, activist, and advisor to governments and global organizations, Heal clearly and passionately demonstrates that the only way to achieve long-term economic growth is to protect our environment. Writing both to those conversant in economics and to those encountering these ideas for the first time, Heal begins with familiar concepts, like the tragedy of the commons and unregulated pollution, to demonstrate the underlying tensions that have compromised our planet, damaging and in many cases devastating our natural world.Such destruction has dire consequences not only for us and the environment but also for businesses, which often vastly underestimate their reliance on unpriced natural benefits like pollination, the water cycle, marine and forest ecosystems, and more. After painting a stark and unsettling picture of our current quandary, Heal outlines simple solutions that have already proven effective in conserving nature and boosting economic growth. In order to ensure a prosperous future for humanity, we must understand how environment and economy interact and how they can work in harmony-lest we permanently harm both.

In recent years, scientists have begun to focus on the idea that healthy, functioning ecosystems provide essential services to human populations, ranging from water purification to food and medicine to climate regulation. Lacking a healthy environment, these services would have to be provided through mechanical means, at a tremendous economic and social cost. "Nature and the Marketplace" examines the controversial proposition that markets should be designed to capture the value of those services. Written by an economist with a background in business, it evaluates the real prospects for several of nature's marketable services to "turn profits" at levels that exceed the profits expected from alternative, ecologically destructive, business activities.The author: describes the infrastructure that natural systems provide, how we depend on it, and how we are affecting it; explains the market mechanism and how it can lead to more efficient resource use; looks at key economic activities - such as ecotourism, bioprospecting and carbon sequestration - where market forces can provide incentives for conservation; examines policy options other than the market, such as pollution credits and mitigation banking; and considers the issue of sustainability and equity between generations. "Nature and the Marketplace" presents an accessible introduction to the concept of ecosystem services to the economics of the environment. It offers a clear assessment of how market approaches can be used to protect the environment, and illustrates that with a number of cases in which the value of ecosystems has actually been captured by markets. The book offers a straightforward business economic analysis of conservation issues, eschewing romantic notions about ecosystem preservation in favour of real-world economic solutions.It should be an eye-opening work for professionals, students and scholars in conservation biology, ecology, environmental economics, environmental policy and related fields.

These 27 articles on the economics of exhaustible resources date from 1931 to 1991.

The Economics of Increasing Returns presents an authoritative collection of the most significant papers by leading scholars in this key area of economics.Increasing returns can change quite radically our view of how the economy operates. They make the economy seem more complicated and pose a challenge to the established wisdom. The papers in this volume cover the main areas in which the recognition of increasing returns makes a significant difference. They are arranged in six main sections: resource allocation and welfare economics, microfoundations of macroeconomics, product variety and imperfect competition, information and information technology, economic growth and international trade. Our understanding of economies with increasing returns is far from complete. This thought-provoking collection gives an insight into existing work on the subject and indicates those areas where further research would bear fruit.

The origins of this volume can be traced back to a conference on "Ethics, Economic and Business" organized by Columbia Busi­ ness School in March of 1993, and held in the splendid facilities of Columbia's Casa Italiana. Preliminary versions of several of the papers were presented at that meeting. In July 1994 the Fields Institute of Mathematical Sciences sponsored a workshop on "Geometry, Topology and Markets": additional papers and more refined versions of the original papers were presented there. They were published in their present versions in Social Choice and Wel­ fare, volume 14, number 2, 1997. The common aim of these workshops and this volume is to crystallize research in an area which has emerged rapidly in the last fifteen years, the area of topological approaches to social choice and the theory of games. The area is attracting increasing interest from social choice theorists, game theorists, mathematical econ­ omists and mathematicians, yet there is no authoritative collection of papers in the area. Nor is there any surveyor book to give a perspective and act as a guide to the issues in and contributions to this new area. One of the two aims of this volume is in some measure to play this role: the other aim is of course to present interesting and surprising new results.