Publications Catalog 1993 - Environmental Economics, Population and TechnologyPublications Catalog 1993 - Environmental Economics, Population and TechnologyAgricultural sustainability, though broadly recognized as important, has no obvious standing in the calculus of economic policy-making. There are no commonly employed quantitative indicators to measure the health, productivity, and economic value of the natural resource base. As demonstrated in WRI's 1991 report, Paying the Farm Bill, the results of conventional analysis can actually encourage inefficient natural-resource use and unsustainable farm policies.
In this important new report, Paul Faeth and co-authors expand upon that earlier work to provide policy-makers with much-needed guidelines for evaluating and improving the sustainability of agricultural policies. Applying natural-resource-accounting principles in six countries in different parts of the world, the authors show how current policies are leading to significant economic and fiscal losses and why resource-conserving practices would prove more successful. The studies focus on groundwater depletion in northwest India; the health costs of pesticide use in the Philippines; agricultural soil-degradation in Chile; and soil productivity, surface water damage, and soil carbon sequestration in Nebraska and Pennsylvania.
Paul Faeth is a Senior Associate in WRI's Economics, Technology, and Institutions Program.
1993
75 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN: 0-915825-94-5
Order Code FAAPP, $14.95
In theory, U.S. agriculture is a business enterprise like any other, so any decline of capital assets should figure in income calculations. In practice, however, farmers depreciate man-made assets such as tractors or silos but make no allowance for the declining value of natural assets such as soil and water. To the extent that U.S. farmers are "living off their capital" by allowing soils to erode and water to be contaminated, their income is overstated today--and is at risk tomorrow.
This report demonstrates that resource-conserving agricultural systems are environmentally and economically superior to conventional systems over the long term. Through case studies of a range of farming strategies on two very different terrains--Nebraska and Pennsylvania--the authors document how U.S. farm policy distorts economic realities and inhibits the use of resource-conserving agricultural practices by making them appear less profitable.
Paul Faeth is a Senior Associate in WRI's Economics, Technology, and Institutions Program. Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI.
1991
(Previously announced as The Kindest Cut: Paying for Tax Reductions with Pollution Charges)
At a time when federal and state governments are searching for new revenue sources and the economic consequences of environmental damages are becoming increasingly apparent, proposals to levy fees on environmentally damaging activities are being considered with greater seriousness. In this ground-breaking report, Repetto and co-authors estimate the economic gains from shifting a significant chunk of the tax burden from income, profits, and payrolls onto congestion, pollution, and waste generation. The authors explore the implications of this shift in structure as well as new monitoring technologies that markedly improve the administrative feasibility of environmental charges. This study demonstrates that such charges can reduce environmental damages, increase economic production and income, and increase economic welfare overall.
Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI. Roger Dower is Director of WRI's Climate, Energy, and Pollution Program. Robin Jenkins and Jacqueline Geoghegan are former consultants to WRI.
l992
The linkages between population growth and environmental degradation are multiple, complex, and not well-understood. All too often, debate about Earth's ability to support human population degenerates into warnings of exponential population growth on the one hand and evidence of rising standards of living in many parts of the world on the other. The authors of this thought-provoking study expand the debate significantly by considering the critical role of social institutions, equity, resource management, and other variables in the population/resource relationship. In case studies of Costa Rica and the Philippines, the authors target poverty and open access resources, show how both contribute to forest degradation, and suggest ways to improve the outcome.
Carrie Meyer is an Associate in WRI's Economics, Technology, and Institutions Program. Maria Concepcion Cruz and Richard Woodward are consultants. Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI.
1992
Natural resource conservation and environmental protection are key components of successful economic development; yet these goals are rarely integrated into macroeconomic policies and structural adjustment programs. This case study of the Philippines economy before and after the onset of the debt crisis is a path-breaking analysis of the linkage between macroeconomic policy and natural resource exploitation.
Widespread poverty, massive unemployment, diminishing productivity, and falling export earnings are among the consequences of development strategies that failed to protect the natural resource base on which Philippine economic growth depended. This report analyzes the impact of fiscal policies, trade regimes, and other aggregative economic programs that failed to promote investment in natural resource capital and encouraged exploitation of increasingly marginal natural assets.
Wilfrido Cruz is a former Associate in WRI's Economics, Technology, and Institutions Program. Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI.
1992
Applying and expanding upon the model of natural resource accounting documented in Wasting Assets: Natural Resources in the National Income Accounts, this case study presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of economic depreciation of Costa Rica's forestry and soil sectors. It also introduces an accounting methodology for coastal fisheries. For each sector, the authors present an historical overview, estimate the economic costs of past and current patterns of resource use, and calculate the resulting depreciation.
Published by Tropical Science Center and World Resources Institute.
1991
Resolving global environmental and economic problems requires a new kind of international cooperation among nations. Only if the northern industrialized nations set their own houses in order can this cooperation be achieved. This report spells out actions that the North must take if the world economy is going to continue to develop and yet avoid the environmental degradation that threatens to undermine living standards. Among its prescriptions are reconfiguring national income accounting to reflect natural resource losses, dismantling farm policies that disrupt trade and penalize developing country farmers, revamping economic policies to discourage pollution and waste, enacting fossil fuel taxes to encourage energy efficiency and technology development, and providing developing countries with debt relief and a more supportive policy framework for international trade.
Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI.
1990
Lured by exotic natural wonders, pristine landscapes, and "authentic" local cultures, more and more vacationers are joining the ranks of nature tourists. Nature tourism can provide both funds and incentives to protect natural areas, but it can also lead to their degradation and overuse. This report examines how better economic management of nature tourism can promote development and conservation without degrading the natural resources on which development depends. The author reviews recent trends in the nature-tourism industry and analyzes various approaches to issues of access, revenue, expenditure, and management, based on specific examples around the world.
Kreg Lindberg is a former Consultant to WRI's International Conservation Financing Project.
1991
If, as predicted, world population doubles and GNP increases several times by the middle of the next century, the only way environmental catastrophe can be avoided is by a wholesale transformation of commonly used technologies. But what kinds of technologies will maximize environmental sustainability, economic growth, and national security in the next century, and what public policy changes are necessary now to promote their development and effective application?
Setting out to determine a core of knowledge and expertise vital to the achievement of environmental sustainability, the authors of this far-reaching study establish criteria for defining "environmentally strategic technology." Drawing on interviews with technical experts in industry, government, and academia and a survey of private-sector trends, the authors document the growing influence of environmental considerations on technology development in a broad range of industries. They also show how environmental R&D is nevertheless neglected by current U.S. policies and propose a broad range of practical reforms and new initiatives to ensure the technological achievements necessary for sustainable growth.
George Heaton is a consultant. Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI.
l992
Industrial and energy technologies in developing countries are typically inefficient and polluting. Although the technological know-how to solve these problems is well-established throughout the industrialized world, its application in less developed regions is proceeding at a snail's pace.
This report examines in detail the impediments to international diffusion of environmentally superior technologies and recommends new public and private-sector initiatives to speed the process. The outgrowth of a collaborative effort by expert panels in the United States and Japan, this report brings together a wide range of constructive ideas. The authors propose a leading role for multinational companies and international business associations in diffusing cleaner technologies, and they stress the importance of international financial and technical cooperation to integrate such technologies into developing country markets.
Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI. George Heaton is a Consultant.
Forthcoming
Technology has contributed more than any other factor to increases in wealth and productivity. If channeled appropriately in the future, it could hold the key to environmental sustainability as well.
This report explores the extraordinarily rich potential for new technologies to resolve environmental and economic problems. It argues that what is required to achieve this potential is not more technological know-how but new ways of thinking and new policies and practices, particularly in the areas of environmental regulation, economic and technology policies, international trade, corporate management, and education.
George Heaton is a consultant. Robert Repetto is Vice President and Chief Economist at WRI. Rodney Sobin is a former WRI Research Assistant.
l991
Corporate claims of environmental progress have often
been dismissed by observers as insincere public relations
gimmicks. Others, however, note growing environmental
understanding and responsiveness on the part of several
important industrial sectors.
In this book, two dozen companies that see themselves as
environmentally progressive describe, in their own
words, what they are doing, why, what the results have
been, and how they see their environmental futures.
The result is a composite case history of today's corporate
environmentalism as seen by some of the best-known
names in U.S. industry, including Chevron, Du Pont, Dow,
Pacific Gas & Electric, Procter & Gamble, and Xerox as well
as a number of smaller firms. Organized into 13 chapters,
their stories offer useful lessons for companies of any size
engaged in or considering environmental reform. This
book is also useful for anyone interested in emerging
trends in corporate environmentalism and the potential
for corporate participation in the search for solutions to
environmental problems.
Bruce Smart is Senior Fellow at WRI. He is former
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Continental
Group.
l992
Order Code FAPFP, $14.95
Green Fees: How a Tax Shift Can Work for the Environment and the Economy
Robert Repetto, Roger Dower, Robin Jenkins, and Jacqueline Geoghegan
100 pages (est.), large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-76-7
Order Code REKCP, $14.95
NEW
Population Growth, Poverty, and Environmental Stress: Frontier Migration in the Philippines and Costa Rica
Carrie A. Meyer, Maria Concepcion Cruz, Robert Repetto, and Richard Woodward
90 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-86-4
Order Code MEPPP, $14.95
NEW
The Environmental Effects of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Programs: The Philippines Case
Wilfrido Cruz and Robert Repetto
90 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-81-3
Order Code CRSAP, $14.95
Accounts Overdue: Natural Resource Depreciation in Costa Rica
From Costa Rica's fragile soils have sprung some of the world's lushest forests. Yet this once tree-rich nation may soon be importing millions of dollars of timber products a year because its commercial woodlands are being depleted. Account Overdue shows what happens when the value of natural resources is excluded from calculations of national income. Costa Rica, the authors show, is losing 5 percent of its GNP annually as a result of excessive resource exploitation.
110 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-66-X
Order Code CRRAP, $14.95Promoting Environmentally Sound Economic Progress: What the North Can Do
Robert Repetto
20 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-57-0
Order Code REPEP, $12.95
Policies for Maximizing Nature Tourism's Ecological and
Economic Benefits
Kreg Lindberg
30 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-67-8
Order Code LIEPP, $12.95
NEW
Backs to the Future: U.S. Government Policy Toward
Environmentally Critical Technologies
George Heatton and Robert Repetto
35 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN 0-915825-75-9
Order Code HEBTP, $14.95
FORTHCOMING
Technology Transfer
Darryl Banks and Daryl Ditz
April 1994
100 pages (est.), large-format paperback
ISBN 915825-80-5
Order Code, $14.95
Transforming Technology: An Agenda for Environmentally Sustainable Growth in the Twenty-first Century
George Heaton, Robert Repetto, and Rodney Sobin
40 pages, large-format paperback
ISBN: 0-915825-68-6
Order Code HETTP, $14.95
NEW
Beyond Compliance: A New Industry View of the Environment
Edited by Bruce Smart
285 pages, paperback
ISBN 0-915825-73-2
Order Code SMBCP, $19.95