Environmental problems, as far as they raise economic questions, even conflicting with pre-ecology economics, can be tackled in different ways. The way chosen by Bernard Coupe was not the French 'voie royale', -a Louis-XIV equivalent of a speedway - but the narrow path, con sisting in carefully implementing a simple but valid model. This model is amenable to many extensions, but it reveals the core of some economic-ecological problems: the search for acceptable solutions when one is confronted with a set of rather narrow constraints. A not uninteresting finding is that 'full-employment' solutions do seem to exist, though leading to different uses of the product made available. How such solutions are to be politically implemented is then a further stage of the reasoning, not taken up in this book. We spent, Bernard and I, many a well-filled hour in discussing the technicalities of the exercise: the consumption and investment functions, with their estimation problems, the treatment of the transportation sector, problems in geometric programming, et de quibusdam aliis. Especially when prefacing the final product, one is particularly pleased to be able to evoke the times past, but well spent. Bernard Coupe will certainly in the course of his development work in Africa, use the spirit and techniques of this approach. We can expect in the future some good reporting on this facet of his work too.
This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic consequences of outdoor air pollution in the coming decades, focusing on the impacts on mortality, morbidity, and changes in crop yields as caused by high concentrations of pollutants.
Economic development and the environment are presumed to be in conflict, but the latter part of the twentieth century experienced a series of economic changes that increasingly questioned this view. Economic activity became more footloose and the ability to attract productive labor became a prominent regional development concern. Consequently, environmental amenities began to have a larger role in determining the patterns of regional growth and development, and subsequently moved to the forefront of current regional economic development thought and practice. Environmental amenities provide non-pecuniary benefits to area residents, and induce in-migration flows to regions that possess high levels of environmental amenities. The attraction is particularly strong for those individuals with higher incomes and wealth. The combined forces of increased demand for environmental amenities and increased spatial flexibility of production has brought environmental amenities to the forefront of current regional economic development thought and practice. Regional economic development policy needs to consider the tradeoffs of attracting firms or people, which requires an understanding of the role the environment plays directly or indirectly in attracting firms and households. This book presents key papers that explore the role of the natural environment in regional economic development. The papers contain critical insights and information for both researchers and practitioners interested in the nexus between environmental amenities and regional economic growth and development. The book covers varied dimensions of this issue, including: the relative importance of amenities in recent variation in regional growth; the role of local infrastructure in promoting amenity-led development; socio-economic distribution concerns and sustainability of amenity-based growth; and the effects of local environmentally protected areas on other economic activities. This book will be of most value to practitioners and academics, specifically related to the areas of environmental economics, regional economic development, local and regional planning, public administration and public policy.
The issue of maintaining a balanced relationship between tourism and the environment has received considerable attention since the 1970s. However, only in the 1980s and 1990s did it become a topic of systematic academic inquiry and research, distinguished from the broader area of the environmental impacts of recreation and leisure activities. This volume dwells on the environmental and economic impacts of tourism and is divided as follows: Part 1: Introduction and Overview Part 2: Tourism and the Environment: General Considerations Part 3: Regional Issues Part 4: Economic Issues Part 5: Policy Issues The work is complemented by a subject index.
This dissertation, "The Environmental Impacts of Regionalization and Marketization in Contemporary China" by Laurent-charles, Tremblay-Lévesque, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: China''s modern development has been a long-hauled process paved with great difficulties. While China was becoming the world''s second largest economy, behind only to the United States, anxieties on the Sino environmental condition grew perhaps just as much as its gross domestic product. The purpose of this research is to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between China''s political and economic transformations and the country''s evolving environmental quality. This study first isolates and determines the ecological consequences attached to China''s political regionalization. In doing so, it primarily looks at environmental protection investments at the provincial level as an indicator for regional environmental quality. Results show that under China''s federalized circumstances the proportional size of total public budgetary expenditures (TBEs) allocated to environmental protection investments (EPIs) is negatively associated to a province''s wealth. However, EPIs/TBEs ratios are nonetheless found to be inter-regionally converging for period between 2007 and 2013. This study then additionally analyzes the effect of in-budget provincial deficits as to explore what can influence the size of the budgetary pie conferred to EPIs. The outcome of the Tobit regression model reveals that an increase of 1% in the region''s in-budget deficit against the provincial GDP is significantly correlated to a 2.75% decrease in the proportional share of EPIs in the TBEs. In a second instance, this research assesses the environmental impacts related to the penetration of market-oriented features into China''s regional economic structures. In making such endeavor possible, the levels of regional marketization, as provided by the indexes of the NERI Annual Provincial Marketization Reports, are set against provincial figures for air, water and land pollution. First discovered is the negative spatial-temporal correspondence between levels of marketization and pollution intensities, whereby provinces with higher marketization rates have mostly sustained lower environmental pollution emissions in GDP terms. This association is further statistically tested through a panel data fixed effect analysis. The results show that regional marketization levels have an "L-shaped" curve effect on pollutant intensities for Sulfur Dioxide, chemical oxygen demand and industrial solid waste disposals. The findings of this study converge towards two major sets of implications. With respect to the regionalization, this work highlights that the fiscal prerogatives which accompanied China''s political transformation have indeed fertilized the grounds for the "growth first and treat pollution later" developmental trap. Yet, it specifies in that sense that a province''s environmental behavior still largely varies based on the quality of its fiscal management. From the marketization perspective, this study supports that there is in China an underlying complementarity between economic decentralization and environmental quality. Market penetration walks alongside changes in the economic arrangement, which in turn, alters the impact of regional productive activities on the environment. As marketization is most advanced in costal China, larger cuts in the pollution intensities were historically seen in those areas. It is therefore implied that the greatest environmental gains from marketizatio
Understanding the advancement of sustainable development is critical to managing human activities to avoid the overexploitation of resources and pollution of the environment beyond tolerable levels. Sustainable development involves not only preservation and care of the environment, but also recognition of the complex relations between economic, social and living systems. Environmental Modeling for Sustainable Regional Development: System Approaches and Advanced Methods presents processing methods and their applications, which are practical for decision making and task management at the regional level as well as for scientific studies in sustainable development assessment. This book serves as a reference guide for post-graduate students in the field of management as well as a critical guide for managers, government officials, and information professionals.
