International Library of Environmental Economics and Policy – serie

Before the late 1980s, when the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development to the forefront of public debate, conventional, neo-classical economic thinking about development and growth had rarely given any consideration to the needs of future generations, or the sustainability of natural resource use. Defining sustainability broadly as intergenerational fairness in the long-term decision making of a whole society, and using established economic concepts, this selection of refereed journal articles brings a famously ill-defined concept into sharp focus, providing academics at all levels with a formidable research tool. Spanning thirty years of the most important philosophical, theoretical and empirical contributions from both critics and defenders of neo-classical assumptions and methods of economic analysis, this focused collection of papers constitutes a unique, balanced resource on the full range of intellectual debates surrounding the economics of sustainability.

The Economics of Land Use brings together the most significant journal essays in key areas of contemporary agricultural, food and resource economics and land use policy. The editors provide a state-of-the-art overview of the topic and access to the economic literature that has shaped contemporary perspectives on land use analysis and policy.

The market of municipal solid waste (MSW) collection and disposal has changed substantially over the past thirty years. This study will help guide both newcomers and past contributors through the fundamental aspects of policies designed to reduce the external costs of MSW collection, and the important empirical relationships that, in the end, govern the selection of MSW policies. The International Library of Environmental Economics and Policy explores the influence of economics on the development of environmental and natural resource policy. In a series of twenty-five volumes, the most significant journal essays in key areas of contemporary environmental and resource policy are collected. Scholars who are recognized for their expertise and contribution to the literature in the various research areas serve as volume editors and write essays that provides the context for the collection. Volumes in the series reflect three broad strands of economic research including 1) Natural and Environmental Resources, 2) Policy Instruments and Institutions and 3) Methodology. The editors, in their introduction to each volume, provide a state-of-the-art overview of the topic and explain the influence and relevance of the collected papers on the development of policy. This reference series provides access to the economic literature that has shaped contemporary perspectives on land use analysis and policy.

There is a truly enormous literature on using stated preference information to place a monetary value on environmental amenities. This three volume set provides the key papers for understanding the historical development of contingent valuation, its theoretical and statistical foundations, and the major controversies. It also contains representative papers covering all of the major application areas in environmental valuation.

This volume brings together a number of prominent economic studies all of which deal with key water quality issues. The studies focus on the economic aspects of water quality including identifying the polluters' actions and incentives, designing and comparing control mechanisms, analyzing the costs and benefits of water quality programmes, and finally managing transboundary water quality. They all make recommendations for improving water quality through changing incentives, programmes and/or policies.

Since the 1980's, market-based instruments for environmental policy have become increasingly important. Focusing on environmental taxation in practice, this volume collects key contributions on a wide range of topics, including comparisons of environmental taxation schemes in different countries, political economy issues and key aspects of concrete implementation. It presents a wealth of ex-ante and ex-post analyses, intended as a source of guidance for policy implementation and research. The volume features a full-length introduction locating the literature on environmental taxation in practice in a wider context of theoretical and applied issues.

In this two volume collection the editors have chosen a sample of some of the most essential and inspirational articles and papers for understanding revealed preference methods to value environmental amenities. The papers cover the gamut of methods that are typically classified as revealed preference approaches - including: recreation demand models, hedonic methods, and averting behavior methods, as well as efforts to combine stated and revealed preferences. While this collection is far from exhaustive, the editors have included papers they believe will represent the state of the art in the theory and application of revealed preference methods, contribute to development of the state of the art, or raise fundamental challenges and insights that will drive the research agenda in the coming years.