Talk:Environmental economics

subfields and Green economics

These terms for the subfields environmental finance, Natural Capitalism, measuring well-being and sustainable development are the ones I hear all the time, with minor variations, and are "mainstream" in that they don't question the neoclassical political economy of global capitalism at all.

I think it's fair to say that this is a subfield of neo and the "Green economists" are going beyond it to a new political economy they haven't quite worked out yet, and have their sights set firmly on the money supply.

If anyone has a different impression, I would sure like to hear about it!

Is this article drastically different from Green economics? Should they be merged? --Howrealisreal 21:08, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, "environmental economics" would be treatment of environmental topics by (regular) economics departments. "Green economics" sounds most like studies done by groups/institutions other than e. departments; in Germany those would be institutes/think tanks specialized on environmental topics, like the "Öko-Institut" or maybe the Sierra Club. They do environmental studies, though separated from econ departments. Greetings, --J heisenberg 22:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with J Heisenberg in that green economics (or ecological economics as it is often called in the academic world), is substantially different from environmental economics. Just take a look at the ecological economics page, where this difference is explained in a clear way. --Brogol 20:54, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup?

The first para seems to be a bit of a mess. There were double double-quotes and a large amount of italicized text. It really seems unclear what the point of it is. Not being familiar with the topic or with economics text, I can't positively say it's not something common to the field, but this being an encyclopedia article, it needs brought up to standards with the rest of the Wikipedia. I'll do a basic formatting fix, but will leave greater fixes to someone familiar with the topic who hopefully understands the thrust of that first para. Thanks --El benito 15:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

non-rival?

I think there is a minor mistake in the beginning of this article - open access public goods (the tragedy of the commons) are indeed non-excludable, but they are rival(rous). Anybody disagree?
Conakry 13:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you're correct. The "tragedy of the commons" is really only about excludability. Indeed, if the good were truly nonrival, the tragedy wouldn't be a problem at all. So this is not a problem with "pure public goods," since those are defined as non-rival and non-excludable. RichWoodward 15:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Still a need for?

The idea that there is "still a need for" a conservative form of environmental economics must have been lifted from somewhere. It is unsourced OR and POV. A source would also be needed for the idea that sustainable development belongs within such an approach. I don't want to alter the sentence radically without agreement, since it contains links to other related concepts. Would be interested to read suggestions. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Potential addition to "common misperceptions" section

I believe the concept of market failures and externalities is also not generally discussed during undergraduate business courses in addition to economics courses. For example, many students will learn about dead-weight loss from taxes, taxes will therefore be regarded as a bad thing and there will be no understanding regarding how taxes can help offset the negative externalities of business. I believe this should be included. Any objections? Canking (talk) 20:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding that this misconception also applies to business courses does not inform the reader about environmental economics. If this common misperceptions section is deemed worthy of wikipedia, then using taxation may be a decent example. But you should be more specific on what is meant by offsetting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.165.192.240 (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Poor Analogy

The analogy to criminologists is misleading. Economists work for and inform corporations and the policies that affect business. Criminologists do not advise nor have any other direct relationship to acting criminals nor victims. The lack of participation for criminologists is obvious, but economists participate in the relationship they observe. Economists do business, but criminologists don't do crime. If an economist advised a corporation to take an action which has environmental externalities, or prescribed an economic model that was conducive to such externalities, then the economist influenced the occurrence. I believe the relationship should be more similar, otherwise if readers does not observe the disconnect they have potential to be emotionally informed rather than rationally.

This is also a poor analogy in that the economic portion of the analogy speaks of the economics (the study), where the criminologist portion does not speak of criminology. To say criminologists are a part of the problem would not be saying criminology can't address the problem. And saying economists are a part of the problem does not say economics doesn't have the potential to address the problem. The connection that the author makes implies that one criticizing economists and perhaps the current state of economic study are also criticizing the possibility.

Aside from the analogy, the paragraph that contains it is not useful on wikipedia. Logically it has a lot of loose ends. It is more of a commentary on supposedly uninformed environmentalists, that this author somehow knows have their opinions because they believe advanced economists are oblivious. I have never edited a wikipedia page, so I won't delete this section, but I don't understand why no one else has. It is unsupported commentary with obvious slant, makes a lot of assumptions, and may be directed at larger group than explicitly stated there-by being a broad criticism. Since this isn't informative and doesn't seem encyclopedic in nature, can someone please remove this section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.165.192.240 (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Costs of implementing climate mitigation laws

I have twice removed good content on Costs of implementing climate mitigation laws. I don't disagree with what was written, but this is a page about the discipline of environmental economics, not about specific analsyses. So it is inappropriate for this page. I welcome discussion on this. RichWoodward (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Natural resource economics

The Natural resource economics article doesn't even really qualify as a stub. I'm wondering if it should get merged here? I have the impression that NRE has a different focus, being concerned more with natural resources that humans consume or use as production inputs, while environmental economics is broader, concerned with the relationship of economics to the environment, regardless of whether we consider (say) frogs as a "resource". Does that pretty much capture the difference?

In any case, should they be merged, or just hope the NRE article gets developed? (I favor the latter.) CRETOG8(t/c) 23:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)