This volume presents the ideas of major figures in economics throughout history on key environmental issues such as population growth, resource scarcity and environmental contamination. Throughout, ...the historical roots of current debates are explored with empirical case studies illustrating the link between theory and practice. The final chapters look at current ideas on sustainability, and ethical and spiritual dimensions of humanity's relationship with the environment. Providing fascinating insight into the development of environmental economic thought, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers in the history of economic thought and environmental economics.
•Looks at the economics of one of the longest living investment projects—nuclear power.•Appraisal of this project includes distant costs such as de-commissioning, repository building and ...sealing.•Contends that in economic evaluation of long-term projects there is more than one method of discounting.•Some popular discounting methods reduce distant future costs, which will be incurred by future generations, into practically zero raising moral questions.•Intergenerational discounting method, which treats all generations equally, does not wipe out future costs and thus makes nuclear projects less attractive.
Nuclear power is a growth industry despite the unresolved problem of waste management. This paper considers the case of Turkey which has a fast growing economy, and where the government has given permission to a Russian company to build a large plant in Mersin, Southern Turkey. Nuclear projects have unique features such as expensive set-up costs, long and expensive decommissioning processes (much longer than construction periods) and the issue of safe disposal of large quantities of highly radioactive wastes, some of which will remain active for many thousands of years, that may create environmental problems especially for future generations. The main focus in this paper is on the role of discounting in economic appraisal of nuclear projects in Turkey and elsewhere. Here we use three discounting methods in economic appraisal of the Turkish plant; standard discounting, the UK government’s method of declining discount rate and the intergenerational discounting method. The first two tend to yield somewhat favourable results under the assumption of no interruption in supply due to technical reasons or a major accident. The intergenerational discounting method, on the other hand, which treats all generational cohorts involved equitably, does not yield results as favourable as the other criteria.
In forestry Northern Ireland is one of the most impoverished parts of the European Union as well as the United Kingdom. During the last 10–15 years as afforestation projects gathered speed in many ...parts of the British Isles there has been no notable change in Ulster. One main contributor to this problem was the political uncertainty and violence which has now largely been remedied since the establishment of the devolved government in 2007.
In addition to the recently established political stability there is an equally welcoming factor which is likely to impact positively upon the fortune of forestry sector in the province; that is carbon trading rights under the Kyoto Protocol. The use of new forests as credit towards reducing carbon dioxide emission is an important part of the Kyoto deal and quantities of sequestrated carbon can now be used to offset against emissions elsewhere and in this way they become real benefits like timber values. Therefore, the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by way of afforestation projects should be assessed in economic evaluation of forestry investment proposals. The main purpose of this paper is to carry out a cost–benefit analysis for an afforestation project in Northern Ireland with a view to finding out what difference carbon sequestration will make to the economic rate of return.
Discounting has been a long-established intertemporal efficiency tool in cost-benefit analysis which focuses on project selection at communal level with a view to maximising the social welfare. ...However, with the relentless growth in environmental stress that, in good parts, stems from investment projects the established criterion in discounting appears to be inadequate especially when environmental issues are taken into consideration. This paper looks at how dual focus on efficiency and sustainability can be achieved by using dual discounting, i.e. discounting environmental benefits separately and differently from other costs and benefits and applies this alternative criterion to an afforestation scheme in the United Kingdom which contains carbon sequestration in addition to timber benefits.
SUMMARY
This paper considers whether the modern interest rate theory is in conflict with Islamic values. Unfortunately, the issue is not sufficiently debated in economic and cognate literature and ...thus a mist surrounds the Islamic concept of interest (riba) and its use in the Moslem world that contains about 1.3 billion people and hundreds of billions of dollars of surplus funds. A substantial part of this money has not been made available to the commercial banking system as Islamists in particular keep their savings in the form of gold, precious stones or durable foreign currency, in residential or other safe places, believing that earning interest on savings is against the principles of Islam. This attitude by creating a shortage of funds for investment projects is hampering the economic development of many Moslem countries where standards of living are generally low. The finding of the paper is that only one component part of the time preference rate, namely pure time discount, may be objectionable from the Islamic as well as from secular viewpoints; the rest does not appear to be against Muslim ethics. However, a truly competitive financial market structure is likely to wipe away the excessive pure time discount rate leaving the market interest rate free from any objectionable parameter.
Due to their large biomass forests assume an important role in the global carbon cycle by moderating the greenhouse effect of atmospheric pollution. The Kyoto Protocol recognises this contribution by ...allocating carbon credits to countries which are able to create new forest areas. Sequestrated carbon provides an environmental benefit thus must be taken into account in cost–benefit analysis of afforestation projects. Furthermore, like timber output carbon credits are now tradable assets in the carbon exchange.
By using British data, this paper looks at the issue of identifying optimum felling age by considering carbon sequestration benefits simultaneously with timber yields. The results of this analysis show that the inclusion of carbon benefits prolongs the optimum cutting age by requiring trees to stand longer in order to soak up more CO2. Consequently this finding must be considered in any carbon accounting calculations.
► Carbon sequestration in forestry is an environmental benefit. ► It moderates the problem of global warming. ► It prolongs the gestation period in harvesting. ► This paper uses British data in less favoured districts for growing Sitka spruce species.
This paper estimates a social discount rate in India for the purpose of economic evaluation of investment projects, such as those aimed at improving the nation's agricultural performance. The ...component parameters of this rate are: the growth rate of per capita consumption in real terms, the elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption and the mortality‐based discount rate. Based upon time series data, the overall figure turns out to be 5.2 percent. This, it is contended, is reasonable and may be used in cost benefit analysis in that country.
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