Non-economics students seem to dread any subject with the word ‘economics’ in the title. I sometimes think Bubonic Plague 101 may have more appeal. The paradox here is that in spite of the obscure and elitist jargon, diagrams and formulae in which conventional economics teaching is couched, the fact is that government and increasingly households and communities are preoccupied with considering things by way of their economic impact. And of course, their environmental impact. But the two together? That ecological economics is more than an oxymoron still comes as a surprise to many. We need more of, as the back cover of this book tells us, ‘a textbook about the nature of economics and the economics of nature’.
Here then is a book providing that, in a compact and for the most part, easily digestible fashion. The delivery is personable and (apart from the inevitable isoquants) not overly technical. Textboxes and tables are put to good effect at strategic locations. There are several (black and white) images enriching the discussion. Some chapters usefully provide an appendix at their conclusion for complicated material. The authors even display occasional ironic humour: not bad for purveyors of ‘the dismal science’.
The introductory chapter provides the framework for the book — its content, its intended audience and its uses. It quickly makes a point of distinguishing between economics as science and as practice; as a behavioural as much as a mathematical science. The chapter then considers the ecological limits to market activity before turning (albeit too briefly) to what Marxist approaches may offer.
Chapter 2 deals with the absolute fundamentals of ecosystems and culturally specific interpretations of nature, including the still somewhat abstract understanding of how it can be valued in monetary terms. It then engages in straightforward terms with the Malthusian versus the ‘necessity as the mother of invention’ understanding of what the future holds, before turning to classical versus neo-classical economics, Marshall and Keynes, before arriving at Pigou, the instigator of the idea of negative externalities; hence, the birth of ‘environmental economics’. The distinction between it and ecological economics is made clear; while the former is a branch of economics and retains the basic logic of that discipline, the latter ‘aims to avoid a silo approach by taking a broad perspective … economy, society and environment’. The chapter then presents a generally sympathetic account of the natural capital concept.
Chapter 3 asks are growth and green compatible? It covers conventional measures (the GDP) and emergent measures (of wellbeing in a broader sense). The chapter discusses the main factors in economic growth, from the Industrial Revolution through to Schumpeterian creative destruction, institutions and government intervention. It is here the book becomes heavy going in parts (for those not equipped to deal with mathematical equations) and this continues for a few chapters. Chapter 4 turns directly to natural resources; specifically, the consequences of their depletion. It is therefore concerned with inputs. We are reacquainted with the Simon (cornucopian)–Ehrlich (Malthusian) debate of the 1970s.
Chapter 5 covers the theory and practice of land. The principles of land rent according to Ricardo and von Thunen are well covered, but there is no mention of Alonso, who brought the theory of land rent into the urban realm. This chapter again gets into some scary equations that I would probably not inflict on my students without modification. Chapter 6, on welfare theory, is more theoretical. The reader is introduced to the key concepts of utility, marginal costs, market equilibrium, willingness to pay and the Coase theorem of property rights as establishing environmental protection. The section on measuring welfare on the micro level is ‘isoquant rich’ and has more equations. This is unavoidable and necessary, but by this stage, the reader will be hoping for some step-by-step, even inane, real-world examples to assist interpretation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of emissions trading.
Chapter 7 turns to social cost benefit analysis (CBA), taking care to elucidate both the underlying theory and practice of CBA. It walks us through the key associated elements — Pareto efficiency, discounting, externalities (and the remedy in Pigouvian taxes), public goods and property rights. Chapter 8 turns to valuing nature, one of the most contentious areas for ecological-environmental economics. It considers different valuation methods: economic value, use value, intrinsic value, hedonic pricing and perhaps most importantly, the emergent field of valuation of ecosystem services.
The final chapter turns to landscape economics. A landscape is, in economic terms, a positive or negative externality; however, it is people who ‘make or break landscapes’. This final chapter, then, is more of a social science analysis of the meaning of landscapes and makes a welcome perspective to conclude with. There is no index. I trust this does not reflect a broader trend in academic publications.
Although this is a Dutch book, with occasional examples from the Netherlands, the book is not about Dutch land management (although the Dutch would know as well as anyone); it is about environment-economic relations, with the occasional Dutch example. The only real omission I can think of is that (particularly given the Netherlands’ colonialist history), a perspective from the Global South is absent. The latter is seen as if it were all overwhelmingly agrarian, which ignores the significance (and incredible economic-environmental problems) of its primate megacities. An Indigenous understanding of landscape and of resource management is not directly developed either (reference is made to the Inuit in a footnote).
As a teacher of economic ideas to students from non-economic backgrounds, I am naturally on the lookout for a publication that might build up the underdeveloped bridge between environment and economics. To this end, this volume provides an important contribution. In a number of places, I have marked ‘L’ for additions to my lectures and ‘T’ as a basis for possible tutorial exercises. That alone tells me this book should be used in my teaching. I have on my shelf a number of texts that are concerned with environmental-ecological economics and they are weighty tomes. This book is different, in this and other ways, making it a candidate for a set text that can be pitched at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
