In this paper we first critically review conventional environmental economics. We conclude that the standard theory offers too narrow a perspective for many real world problems and that many theories are not empirically tested. Consequently, environmental economics is at risk of producing...

Much of the improvement in living standards in developed and developing countries alike is attributable to the exploitation of nonrenewable and renewable resources. The problem is to know when the exploitation occurs at rates and with technologies that are sustainable. If they are not...

Decoupling is a crucial topic in the analysis of sustainable development. Without decoupling, continuing and increasing economic growth in developed and developing countries would come with ever increasing environmental pressures, unavoidably destroying the carrying capacity of ecosystems with...

We augment a standard dictator game to investigate how preferences for an environmental project relate to willingness to limit others’ choices. We explore this issue by distinguishing three student groups: economists, environmental economists, and environmental social scientists. We find that...

In a signalling model of conformity, we demonstrate that naïve observers, those that take actions at face value, constrain the set of actions that can possibly be social norms. With rational observers many actions can be norms, but with naïve observers only actions close to that preferred by...

This paper fills a gap in the current academic and policy literature concerning how parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change find common ground when distributing commitments and responsibilities to curb climate change. Preferred principles for sharing the effort to...

The mission of microfinance is generally perceived as compensation for the failure of the mainstream financial institutions to deliver access to finance to the poor. Microloan officers have significant influence on microloans allocation as they contact loan applicants and process information...

A large part of the literature analyzing the links between biodiversity conservation and community development assumes that nature-based tourism managed by indigenous communities will result not only in conservation of natural resources but also in increased development. In practice, indigenous...

Fishers in developing countries do not have the resources to acquire advanced technologies to exploit offshore fish stocks. As a result, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea requires countries to sign partnership agreements with distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to exploit...

In this paper we empirically compare the transaction costs from monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of two environmental regulations directed to cost-efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions: a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax and a tradable emissions system. We do this in the case of...