Does environmental lobbying affect the probability of environmental treaty ratification? Does the level of government corruption play a role for the success of such lobbying? In this paper, we propose that a more corruptible government may be more responsive to the demands of the environmental...

Economic damage from natural hazards can sometimes be prevented and always mitigated. However, private individuals tend to underinvest in such measures due to problems of collective action, information asymmetry and myopic behavior. Governments, which can in principle correct these market...

The Stern Review on The Economics of Climate Change is one of the few cost-benefit analyses of climate change to come out in favour of immediate and decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The choice of a low discount rate is the main reason for the Review’s divergence in...

Some Neo-Malthusians and anti-immigration groups in the United States have recently argued that migration of people to developed countries is damaging to sustainable development and environmental protection. This paper argues that it is inappropriate and ethically indefensible to employ...

Genuine saving measures net investment in produced, natural and human capital. It is a necessary condition for weak sustainable development that genuine saving not be persistently negative. However, according to data provided by the World Bank, resource-rich countries are systematically failing...

Climate change is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and/or intensity of certain types of natural hazards, if not globally, then at least in certain regions. All other things equal, this should lead to an increase in the economic toll from natural disasters over time. Yet, all other...

Natural capital should be preserved because it exhibits features that distinguish it from all other kinds of capital. The notorious prevalence of risk, uncertainty and ignorance makes it difficult, however, to state which parts of it should be preserved. Some forms of natural capital are more...

In this paper, we explain how the latest international handbook on environmental accounting, the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting or SEEA (United Nations et al., 2003), can be used to measure weak and strong sustainability. We emphasise the importance of understanding...