Price, Principle, and the Environment

An engaging and provocative book about the contribution economics can make to environmental policy.

Mark Sagoff (Author)

9780521837231, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 September 2004

294 pages
23.7 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.514 kg

'Sagoff writes well and the book is full of interesting anecdotes and case studies … There is much of interest in this book …' Economics and Philosophy

Mark Sagoff has written an engaging and provocative book about the contribution economics can make to environmental policy. Sagoff argues that economics can be helpful in designing institutions and processes through which people can settle environmental disputes. However, he contends that economic analysis fails completely when it attempts to attach value to environmental goods. It fails because preference-satisfaction has no relation to any good. Economic valuation lacks data because preferences cannot be observed. Willingness to pay is benchmarked on market price and thus may reflect producer cost not consumer benefit. Moreover, economists cannot second-guess market outcomes because they have no better information than market participants. Mark Sagoff's conclusion is that environmental policy turns on principles that are best identified and applied through political processes. Written with verve and fluency, this book will be eagerly sought out by students and professionals in environmental policy as well as informed general readers.

1. Zuckerman's dilemma: an introduction
2. At the monument to General Meade
3. Should preferences count?
4. Value in use and in exchange
5. The philosophical common sense of pollution
6. On the value of wild ecosystems
7. Carrying capacity and ecological economics
8. Cows are better than condos
9. The view from Quincy library.

Subject Areas: Conservation of the environment [RNK], Law [L], Economics [KC], Social & political philosophy [HPS]