Economics and the Environment

The eighth edition of Economics and the Environment is the second to include Dr. Stephen Polasky as a co-author, who brings to the text a reworked and stronger focus on natural resource economics and ecosystem services. The book retains the three interrelated advantages of its earlier incarnations: broad content; pedagogical clarity; and timely, well-integrated examples.

There are a few significant additions to the content, several new end-of-chapter problems and exercises, a set of PowerPoint slides, and updated examples and information throughout. The book continues to provide a rigorous and comprehensive presentation of the “standard analysis,” including the property-rights basis of environmental problems, efficient pollution control, benefit-estimation procedures, and incentive-based regulation. However, Economics and the Environment also incorporates broader topics as separate chapters, notably, the ethical foundations of environmental economics, a focus on ecological economics and strong sustainability, a safety-based approach to controlling pollution, the ecological economic critique of economic growth, the potential for government failure, the promotion of “clean technology,” and opportunities for sustainable development in poor countries.