Customer Reviews

Economics and the Environment

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4 star:		(2)
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How much pollution is too much? What role should government play in regulating the environment? Will "clean technology" lay the foundation for a sustainable future? To help students understand the far-reaching implications of environmental and resource economics, this text examines a broad range of topics in environmental economics. It presents "standard analysis," as well as in-depth treatment of important issues at the cutting edge of environmental policy debates. The focus is on equipping students with the tools necessary to analyze current environmental issues as an economist would.

In keeping with the philosophy of incorporating examples directly in the text, this book begins with a detailed case study of a "big issue" with which many students are familiar-global warming. Other issues covered in a rigorous and comprehensive manner include the property-rights basis of environmental problems, benefit estimation techniques and benefit-cost analysis, incentive-based regulation, and sustainable resource use.

The Second Edition retains the three interrelated advantages of its predecessor-(1) broad content, (2) pedagogical clarity, and (3) timely, well-integrated examples-while incorporating major reorganizations, additions and updates aimed at enhancing learning and reflecting the most up-to-date information available. Following the Introduction, this text centres around four focussed questions:

Part I: How Much Pollution is Enough? Part II: Is Government Up to the Job? Part III: How Can We Do Better? Part IV: Can We Resolve Global Issues?

Using these questions as guidelines, the author develops the economic tools students need to explore solutions to environmental problems. In the process, the book covers a wealth of current examples, from global warming, to population growth, to urban air pollution and energy policy, to chemical regulation and landfill siting.

Part V covers four advanced topics: The Importance of Being Convex, Imperfect Regulation in an Uncertain World, Input-Output Models and Life-Cycle Analysis and Incentive-Compatible Regulation.

As this text addresses important questions raised in contemporary (and future) society and introduces readers to the economist's view of some solutions, it is highly recommended for students taking courses in environment management, environmental and resource economics, and environmental studies. Ideally, students would have undertaken a course in microeconomics or intermediate microeconomics as a prerequisite.

Formerly a Research Officer with the Malaysian Timber Council's London office and Business Development Manager with KPMG's Kuala Lumpur office, Azlan Adnan is currently Managing Partner of Azlan & Koh Knowledge and Professional Management Group, an education and management consulting practice based in Kota Kinabalu. He holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School.

Goodstein's book is a useful and comprehensive overview of environmental economics. The language is lucid and the math is minimized so that the concepts covered can be understood by anyone willing to make an effort.

The topics discussed include how economists conceptualize and measure pollution, what kinds of trade-offs are associated with different ways of reducing pollution, how to measure economic growth in a way that takes account of environmental costs, and how specific moral principles (for example, utilitarianism and classical liberalism) underlie the various policy proposals economists offer in response to environmental problems.

The most refreshing aspect of Economics and the Environment is Goodstein's insistence that while economists can explain why certain policies are more efficient than others, they have no special expertise in making value judgments, including the judgment that socially efficient outcomes are always best.

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:55:19 -0500 From: C.N.Gomersall <gomersni@luther.edu> To: eban@lclark.edu Subject: student evaluations of your text Eban, I'm the fellow who asked you about the double dividend issue last spring, when I was using your text in my class on environmental economics. As we both gear up for next semester, I thought I'd send you the results of my request, during that course last spring, for (anonymous) evaluation of the text on the part of my students. (I survey most of my classes this way, though never with this kind of result; on the contrary, students are often rather cutting.) I'm including every word from every student. (1) I like this book. I think it has good chapter layouts and is great with examples. The examples also make the text more interesting to read. (2) I like the text. I think it is very straightforward and clear. It does a very good job of organizing what is important and what is needed to understand some of the issues. (3) Goodstein's text, in my opinion, is valuable. It moves away from the strict "Friedman approach." It shows different sides of the arguments presented and is fairly detailed. (4) Goodstein's book is excellent, one of the best textbooks I used in college. Its best attribute is the many examples given, they also help in the learning process. (5) Excellent book. Well written and uses great examples. He ties in human with the well descriptive topics. [This sentence was hard to read.]

(6) Goodstein's text has been very well written and easy to use. (7) Goodstein does a good job of writing this text. Sometimes it is a bit dry and the chapters take a long time to read. Overall, though, this is a good text for this class and a good learning tool. (8) I think the Goodstein text does a pretty good job of writing at a level that we can interpret. I also like his summaries of the chapters, and pointing out of important topics in each section. (9) Good book. Interesting to read. (10) Goodstein is good at getting his point across. It seems to me that much in his book is repetitive, though. It is difficult though to talk about this subject without being repetitive. Overall Goodstein does [a] good job, especially with examples. (11) Goodstein as such has been a good selection for the text. He explains a lot of new material in a manner geared towards his primary audience, the students. I think he has done a good job. (12) The Goodstein book is excellent, in my opinion. It seems very unbiased, especially considering the possibilities of either being slanted toward the environment or the other way [sic]. It presents a lot of information without being too technical and overwhelming those of us who haven't had much economics with graphs and other "economic tools." And yes, I liked it too. (signed) Nick Gomersall

_________________________________________________________ C.N.Gomersall gomersni@luther.edu Associate Professor of Economics Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, U.S.A.

This book is amazing in that it can deliver economics content without obscuring it in highly technical jargon or in complex mathematical equations. I love it because it is simple, and it presents great examples to back up its arguments. This is not an env. econ textbook that decides to remain neutral in the climate change debate, instead, it prefers to be realistic and acknowledge that climate change is happening and to use economics to explain what the causes and possible solutions are.

This book is well written and covers a lot of information. I had to purchase this for an Environmental Economics class. This book helps to explain the the appropriate levels of pollution and how regulation can be harmful. Overall, it could have used more graphs and illustrations, but it was still a well written book.

How much pollution is too much? What role should government play in regulating the environment? Will "clean technology" lay the foundation for a sustainable future? These are the questions students of environment issues are posed with.

To help readers understand the far-reaching implications of environmental and resource economics, this text examines a broad range of topics in environmental economics. It presents "standard analysis," as well as in-depth treatment of important issues at the cutting edge of environmental policy debates.

The focus is on equipping readers with the tools necessary to analyze current environmental issues as an economist would.

In keeping with the philosophy of incorporating examples directly in the text, this book begins with a detailed case study of a "big issue" with which many students are familiar-global warming.

Other issues covered in a rigorous and comprehensive manner include the property-rights basis of environmental problems, benefit estimation techniques and benefit-cost analysis, incentive-based regulation, and sustainable resource use.

The Second Edition retains the three interrelated advantages of its predecessor-(1) broad content, (2) pedagogical clarity, and (3) timely, well-integrated examples-while incorporating major reorganizations, additions and updates aimed at enhancing learning and reflecting the most up-to-date information available.

Following the Introduction, this text centres around four focussed questions:

Part I: How Much Pollution is Enough? Part II: Is Government Up to the Job? Part III: How Can We Do Better? Part IV: Can We Resolve Global Issues?

Using these questions as guidelines, author Eban S. Goodstein develops the economic tools students need to explore solutions to environmental problems. In the process, the book covers a wealth of current examples, from global warming, to population growth, to urban air pollution and energy policy, to chemical regulation and landfill siting.

Part V covers four advanced topics: The Importance of Being Convex, Imperfect Regulation in an Uncertain World, Input-Output Models and Life-Cycle Analysis and Incentive-Compatible Regulation.

As this text addresses important questions raised in contemporary (and future) society and introduces readers to the economist's view of some solutions, it is highly recommended for students taking courses in environment management, environmental and resource economics, and environmental studies. Ideally, students would have undertaken a course in microeconomics or intermediate microeconomics as a prerequisite.

Reviewed by Azlan Adnan. Formerly a Research Officer with the Malaysian Timber Council's London office and Business Development Manager with KPMG's Kuala Lumpur office, Azlan holds a Master's degree in International Business and Management from the Westminster Business School.

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This book covers it all. Market failure, clean technology, third world countries. The explainations and graphs are excellent. No worries if you are new to economics all the terms are well explained.

This is a very information book and not too difficult to understand even though it presents tons of info.