Population growth is often viewed as a most oppressive global problem with respect to environmental deterioration, but the relationships between population development, economic dynamics and environmental pollution are complex due to various feedback mechanisms. We analyze society’s economic...

Ecolabels are designed to help consumers identify environmentally superior products and services, however, they are not all created equal. Some ecolabels have strong rules that promote environmental improvements, while others have weaker rules that permit free-riding. Since information about...

Climate change mitigation can be achieved, according to many, by means of Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in the Tropics (REDD). Within the climate change policy debate we thus find discussions on how to reduce GHG emissions by designing appropriate REDD programmes...

In this paper, we study the impact of the economic growth on the environment. First, we show that, at each income level, n determines the direction of environmental degradation, where n is the elasticity of substitution between consumption and the environment. That is, for n large enough, as...

Nature conservation scientists and practitioners have voiced the concern that a conservation discourse based on economic arguments and monetary valuation may undermine conservation efforts by eroding ("crowding out") the influence of other arguments for nature conservation. This paper presents...

This research examines variations in the diffusion of agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a society's history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances did not lead to a collapse of...

Social scientists have long argued that developed countries are more and more responsible for climate change because they externalise pollution to less developed countries. This paper offers a way to quantify climate responsibility by calculating carbon footprints and carbon balances between...

In this paper we investigate the reasons why integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) fail to achieve their conservation goals. We develop a bio-economic model of open access land and wildlife exploitation, which is consistent with many farming and hunting societies living in...

This paper investigates the impact of social preferences and information about the value chain on the willingness to pay (WTP) for Fair-trade products. More specifically, the perceived social and economic benefits for Fair-trade farmers are analyzed in order to study whether altruistic...