Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance

This book redesigns environmental governance for a sustainability transition, helping academics and decision-makers truly understand the socio-economic impacts of policy.

Jean-François Mercure (Author)

9781108428828, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 November 2022

320 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 3.1 cm, 0.86 kg

The world is slowly waking up to the importance of modern economic thinking which recognises economies as complex, evolving systems combining innovation in technologies, finance and institutions. The insights arising are especially important for navigating large-scale transitions, such as the radical challenges associated with climate change.   Few scholars have done more to raise awareness and to advance thinking about these issues than Jean-Francois Mercure.  His impressive book, Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance, is the most rigorous and comprehensive guide to this exciting field and the essential insights arising, and deserves to become the definitive text for the field. Michael D. Grubb, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University College of London

In Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance, Jean-François Mercure reframes environmental policy and provides a rigorous methodology necessary to tackle the complexity of environmental policy and the transition to sustainability. The book offers a detailed account of the deficiencies of environmental economics and then develops a theory of innovation and macroeconomics based on complexity theory. It also develops a new foundation for evidence-based policy-making using a Risk-Opportunity Analysis applied to the sustainability transition. This multidisciplinary work was developed in partnership with prominent natural scientists and economists as well as active policy-makers with the aim to revolutionize thinking in the face of the full complexity of the sustainability transition, and to show how it can best be governed to minimize its distributional impacts. The book should be read by academics and policy-makers seeking new ways to think about environmental policy-making.

Part I. The Current State of Knowledge: 1. Introducing Complex Environmental Economics
2. Complexity Heterogeneity, and Uncertainty
3. Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Paradigms
4. Philosophies of Science and the Policy Cycle
Part II. A Positive Theory for Complexity Economics: 5. Concepts of Complexity for Economics
6. Fundamental Uncertainty
7. Micro-Foundations for Consumer Theory
8. Micro-foundations for a Theory of Innovation
9. The Nature of Money
10. Micro-Foundations for Credit Creation
11. A Model for Growth and Creative Destruction
Part III. Applied Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance: 12. Risk-Opportunity Analysis
13. Science & Policy for the Energy-Water-Food Nexus
14. Technology Dynamics in a Low-Carbon Transition
15. Structural Change in a Low-Carbon Transition
16. Conclusion and Outlook.

Subject Areas: Environmentalist thought & ideology [RNA], Environmental factors [MBNH2], International environmental law [LBBP], Environmental economics [KCN]