The Global Environment, Natural Resources, and Economic Growth
Willi Semmler editor Alfred Greiner editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:14th Aug '08
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Recently, the public attention has turned toward the intricate interrelation between economic growth and global warming. This book focuses on this nexus but broadens the framework to study the issue. Growth is seen as global growth, which affects the global environment and climate change. Global growth, in particular high economic growth rates, imply a fast depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources. Thus this book deals with the impact of the environment and the effect of the exhaustive use of natural resources on economic growth and welfare of market economies as well as the reverse linkage. It is arranged in three parts: Part I of the book discusses the environment and growth. There, Greiner and Semmler incorporate the role of environmental pollution into modern endogenous growth models and use recently developed dynamic methods and techniques to derive appropriate abatement activities that policymakers can institute. Part II looks at global climate change using these same growth models. Here, too, the authors provide direct and transparent policy implications. More specifically, the authors favour tax measures, such as a carbon tax, over emission trading as instruments of mitigation policies. Part III evaluates the use and overuse of renewable and non-renewable resources in the context of a variety of dynamic models. They, in particular, consider the cases when resources interact as an ecological system and analyze issues of ownership of resources as well as policy measures to avoid the overuse of resources. In addition, not only intertemporal resource allocation but also the eminent issues relating to intertemporal inequities, as well as policy measures to overcome them, are discussed in each part of the book.
Issues concerning the global environment, natural resources and economic growth are at the heart of a great deal of current political and social debate. Greiner and Semmler in this book address these issues within the framework of modern economic theory, in particular applying the techniques of intertemporal optimal growth theory. They develop an integrated framework for the study of environmental and climate issues as well as those concerning renewable and non-renewable resources. As a result they present a range of simple models that give policy insights and policy recommendations. This book should be of interest to applied economists, climate change modellers and environmental policy makers. * Professor Carl Chiarella, School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney *
Can economic growth continue in the face of environmental and resource constraints? Or rather, what kind of growth can continue in the face of such constraints? And what kinds of institutions are needed to bring about this growth? Clearly there are few questions that are of more significance for humanity. Greiner and Semmler bring tools of sophisticated economic theory to play in exploring the answers to these questions. Their analysis is thought-provoking and instructive, and is strongly recommended to anyone who wants to explore these issues deeply. * Geoffrey Heal, Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility, Columbia Business School and School of International and Public Affairs *
This book offers a substantial and significant achievement from these two representatives of the Bielefeld School. Using endogenous growth theory, they construct a sophisticated, general model of the interaction between growth and the environment, and then show specifically using empirical data how it can be used to analyze policy regarding global warming, and problems of renewable and nonrenewable resource management in a nonlinear dynamic context. It provides examples of how conventional policy nostrums may not always work. This book should be required reading for serious students of these matters. * J. Barkley Rosser, Jr., James Madison University *
ISBN: 9780195328233
Dimensions: 160mm x 236mm x 25mm
Weight: 508g
220 pages