Environmental Economics

For the past 25 years, governmental decision-makers have employed the economic approach of benefit-cost analysis for resource allocation decisions. Environmental Economics describes, in a non-technical, readily understandable way, why the actual practice of benefit-cost analysis in environmental settings is heavily biased against the environment. The book provides environmentalists with the tools necessary to show policy-makers that pursuing many policies with apparent costs greater than benefits are, in fact, welfare enhancing.

Environmental Economics: A Critique of Benefit-Cost Analysis describes, in a non-technical, readily understandable way, why the practice of benefit-cost analysis in environmental settings is heavily biased against the environment. The book provides environmentalists with the tools necessary to show policy-makers that pursuing many policies with apparent costs greater than benefits are, in fact, welfare-enhancing.

Philip E. Graves is professor of economics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has been teaching environmental economics for thirty years and is the co-author of The Economics of Environmental Quality (Norton, 1986) and Intermediate Microeconomics (Harcourt, 1988).