Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital

This 2005 book analyzes how natural resources, social infrastructure, and institutions might be optimally sustained.

Hirofumi Uzawa (Author)

9780521066495, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2008

416 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.55 kg

'No one but Hiro Uzawa could produce so precise, careful, and complete an analysis of the main forms of common property resources to be found in modern industrial society. Fortunately he has done it and provided about as much intellectual unity as seems appropriate. Filling in the worldly details will be worked on by many people for many years, but now there is a framework, indeed a common resource.' Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Social common capital provides members of society with those services and institutional arrangements that are crucial in maintaining human and cultural life. Social common capital is comprised of three categories: natural capital, social infrastructure, and institutional capital. Natural capital consists of natural environment and resources including the Earth's atmosphere. Social infrastructure consists of roads, bridges, public transportation systems, and public utilities. Institutional capital includes hospitals, educational institutions, judicial and police systems, public administrative services, financial and monetary institutions, and cultural capital. This 2005 book attempts to modify and extend the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to make them broad enough to analyze the economic implications of social common capital. It aims to find the institutional arrangements and policy measures that will bring about the optimal state of affairs in which the natural and institutional components are blended together harmoniously to realize the sustainable state as suggested by John Stuart Mill.

1. Fisheries, forestry, and agriculture in the theory of the commons
2. The prototype model of social common capital
3. Sustainability and social common capital
4. A commons model of social common capital
5. Energy and recycling of residual wastes
6. Agriculture and social common capital
7. Global warming and sustainable development
8. Education as social common capital
9. Medical care as social common capital.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Social impact of environmental issues [RNT], Environmental economics [KCN], Economics [KC]