Environmental Markets: Equity and Efficiency

Markets are increasingly central to the resolution of environmental problems. They played a critical role in implementing the 1990 Clean Air Act of the United States, which has been instrumental in reducing acid rain in a cost-effective manner. They are also central to the global strategy adopted for limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and are being used for resolving conflicts over the use of other environmental resources, particularly water.

Environmental Markets: Equity and Efficiency represents the first systematic and in-depth study of the economic issues raised by this growing use of environmental markets. Focusing on the relationship between equity and efficiency -- which is central to many of the debates between industrial and developing countries -- the book explores the underlying economics and the possibilities for win-win solutions that benefit all parties to the problems.

Graciela Chichilnisky and Geoffrey Heal have been instrumental in developing the economic understanding required for the operation of environmental markets and for promoting their use among policy makers leading to the Kyoto Protocol. Contributors to this volume include established experts from international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and academia, including Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, who chaired the negotiating committee of the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto meetings.

Columbia University Press

As human societies grapple with the scarcity of environmental resources — clean water, biodiversity, and atmospheric quality — environmental markets will achieve an important role in the global economy. Along with markets for knowledge, they may become the most important institutions in the world economy during the coming century. Environmental Markets offers authoritative economic results and cutting-edge ideas on the equity and efficiency of the environmental markets of the future.

Art Small

Given the sometimes addled state of current theory on the economics of climate change, Environmental Markets is a promising, timely, and welcome step forward.

Graciela Chichilnisky holds the UNESCO Chair in Mathematics and Economics and is professor of statistics at Columbia University, where she is the director of the Program on Information and Resources and its Center for Risk Management. She introduced and developed the concept of "basic needs" and is the author of eleven books and some 180 scientific articles.

Geoffrey Heal is Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility and professor of economics and finance of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. A past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, he is the author of many scientific articles and thirteen books, including Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources; Valuing the Future: Economic Theory and Sustainability; and Nature and the Marketplace.