Topics in Environmental Economics

This book shows, we believe, the breadth and the complexity of issues that econo mists now tackle in their analysis of the connections between the ecosystem and the economic system. The book offers contributions to such disparate issues as the value of preserving the wolf in Sweden and the proper distribution of permits in an effective global warming treaty. Because these questions remain at the fore front of important resource allocation problems that need to be confronted, it is only appropriate that they are represented in a book that intends to paint a picture, albeit certainly incomplete, of the vibrant and progressing state of environmental economics. The contributions cover five areas of environmental economics: policy instru ments, cost-benefit analysis, cost-efficiency, contingent valuation and experimental economics. Each area is worthy of a book by itself, but here we have made a point of focusing on problems that seem directly applicable to the pressing policy issues of today. Thus, the contributors address topics that are directly relevant to interna tional and regional policy making, as well as those that are linked to development of supporting information systems (e.g. resource accounting). In addition, the con tributions seek to provide high-level applications of measurement techniques as well as pertinent critiques of these methods. The next section provides a summary overview of the book.

Inhalt
1: Policy Instruments.- 1. Markets for Tradeable CO2 Emission Quotas: Principles and Practice.- 2. Costs of Uniform and Differentiated Charges on a Polluting Input: An Application to Nitrogen Fertilisers in Sweden.- 2: Cost-Benefit Analysis.- 3. On the Proper Treatment of Defensive Expenditures in Green NNP Measures.- 4. Preserving Species without an Endangered Species Act: British Columbia's Forest Practices Code.- 5. A Cost-Benefit Analysis of an Alternative Waste Treatment in Northern Norway. Use of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) instead of Coal in an Industrial Process. A Preliminary Analysis.- 3: Cost Efficiency.- 6. Emission Constraints, Emission Permits and Marginal Abatement Costs.- 7. Wetlands as a Nitrogen Sink Estimation of Costs in the Laholm Bay.- 8. Cost Effective Reductions in the Agricultural Load of Nitrogen to the Baltic Sea.- 4: Contingent Valuation Theory and Applications.- 9. Valuing the Wolf in Sweden: Are Benefits Contingent on the Supply?.- 10. A Test of Nonresponse Bias in a Mail Contingent Valuation Survey.- 11. Determination of WTP for a Change in Water Quality with Free Selection of Reference Points.- 5: Experimental Economics and the Contingent Valuation Method.- 12. Statistical Bias Functions: The Alchemy of Contingent Valuation?.- 13. Environmental Damage Assessment with Hypothetical Surveys: The Calibration Approach.- List of Contributors.