Citation:
Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings, R Dorfman & NS Dorfman (eds.), (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1972), 426pp.
Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings is divided into five sections each focused on a particular portion of economics as applied to environmental problems. The first section will interest those who wish an economic perspective on environmental problems. This section discusses economic justifications for pollution and general international environmental problems.
The second section will be of concern to those who desire an understanding of how economic theory can be fruitfully applied to environmental problems. This section offers explanations: of economic theory applied to a common-property resource, the problem of social costs and the divergences between social cost and private costs. Further, the problem of internalizing various externalities are discussed.
The third section will be useful for those who seek economic reasons and methods for environmental protection. This section examines ways in which environmental protection might be achieved by the use of: charges for pollution, regulation of ownership rights to land and water, and manipulation of transaction costs and resource allocation. The potential conflict between property rights and amenity rights is focused upon. The role of government in environmental protection is examined and a public decision model is offered.
The fourth section will be of assistance to those who wish to explore the relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth. This section offers two possible, non-exclusive, causes of the present environmental problems: the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection and a cultural basis.
The final section enumerates the complexities inherent in attempts to measure the costs and benefits of environmental goods. Specifically, the difficulties in measuring the benefit of economic growth which generates air pollution against the cost of human health and the numerous methods for recreation evaluation are addressed.
Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings offers an economic perspective on the present environmental problems. In keeping with the economic focus of the work, it also offers market approaches to the solution of environmental problems and explores no others.