Environment and Development Economics

This book honours Partha Dasgupta, and the field he helped establish; environment and development economics. It concerns the relationship between social systems (to include families, local communities, national economies, and the world as a whole) and natural systems (critical ecosystems, forests, water resources, mineral deposits, pollution, fisheries, and the Earth's climate). Above all, it concerns the poverty-environment nexus: the complex pathways by which people become or remain poor, and resources become or remain overexploited. With contributions by some of the world's leading economists, including five recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics, in addition to scholars based in developing countries, this volume offers a unique perspective on the environmental issues that matter most to developing countries.Preface ; I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW ; 1. Partha Dasgupta's Contributions to Environment and Development Economics ; II. FOUNDATIONS ; 2. Learning, Growth and Development: A Lecture in Honor of Sir Partha Dasgupta ; 3. Some Perspectives on Linked Ecosystems and Socio-Economic Systems ; 4. An Institutional Analysis of Development Cooperation ; III. APPLICATIONS ; 5. Climate Change, Cook Stoves, and Coughs and Colds: Thinking Global and Acting Local in Rural Nepal ; 6. Comments by Joseph E. Stiglitz on Climate Change, Cook Stoves, and Coughs and Colds ; 7. Red Wells or Green Wells and Does it Matter? Examining Household Use of Arsenic Contaminated Water in Bangladesh ; 8. Comments by David Starrett on Red Wells or Green Wells ; 9. Forest Degradation in the Himalayas: Determinants and Policy Options ; 10. Comments by Geoffrey Heal on Forest Degradation in the Himalayas ; 11. An Optimal Contract for Monitoring Illegal Exploitation of Co-Managed Forests in Benin ; 12. Comments by Eric Maskin on An Optimal Contract ; 13. Why Cooperation is Better: The Gains to Cooperative Management of the Argentine Shortfin Squid Fishery in South America ; 14. Comments by Peter Hammond on Why Cooperation is Better ; 15. Occupational and Environmental Health Impacts from Mining in Orissa, India ; 16. Comments by Robert Solow on Occupational and Environmental Health Impacts ; 17. Estimating the Value of Statistical Life for Children in Metro Manila ; 18. Comments by Shanta Devarajan on Estimating the Value of Statistical Life ; IV. THE POVERTY-ENVIRONMENT-POPULATION NEXUS IN INDIA ; 19. Natural Resources and Chronic Poverty in India: Interface and Policy Imperatives ; 20. Comments by Kanchan Chopra on Natural Resources and Chronic Poverty