Empirical evidence indicates that in many developing regions, the extreme poor in more marginal land areas form a"residual"pool of rural labor. Structural transformation in such developing economies depends crucially on labor and land use decisions of these most-vulnerable populations located on...

Evidence suggests that the ecological functions underlying many ecosystem goods and services are spatially variable. For coastal systems, a simple model is developed incorporating a spatial production function that declines across an ecological landscape. The basic model demonstrates how spatial...

Much of the rural poor -- who are growing in number -- are concentrated in ecologically fragile and remote areas. The key ecological scarcity problem facing such poor households is a vicious cycle of declining livelihoods, increased ecological degradation and loss of resource commons, and...

The growing literature on ecosystem services suggests that these benefits are the direct or indirect contributions that ecosystems make to the well-being of human populations. Although the approach to valuing ecosystem services seems straightforward, in practice there are a number of challenges....

Current plans for US Gulf Coast wetland restoration assume that wetlands can save lives and property by reducing storm surges. However, there have been few economic valuations of this benefit for Gulf Coast wetlands. We develop a methodology for estimating the value of wetlands in reducing...

In this comprehensive reference work, Kevin Gallagher has compiled a fresh and broad-ranging collection of expert voices commenting on the interdisciplinary field of trade and the environment. For over two decades policymakers and scholars have been struggling to understand the relationship...

This timely Handbook reviews many key issues in the economics of energy and climate change, raising new questions and offering solutions that might help to minimize the threat of energy-induced climate change.

Green growth, the promotion of energy efficiency and clean energy technologies and sustainable development are frequently viewed as complementary goals by international policymakers. This paper argues that green growth will not ensure sustainable economic development as long as global ecosystem...

This study applies a production function approach to value the groundwater recharge function of the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands in northern Nigeria. The groundwater recharge function supports dry season agricultural production which is dependent on groundwater abstraction for irrigation. Using survey...