REM 420 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Net National Product, Our Common Future, Marginal Cost
Document Summary
Market institutions tend to promote e ciency or maintain social stability (however de ned). Supply management, stability at the cost of innovation. Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. World commission on environment and development (1987): our common future. Linkages between the environment and economic activity at all levels. Sustainability: economic growth and development is sustainable if and only if the stock of overall capital assets remains constant or rises over time. Environmental accounting: the preservation or loss of valuable environmental resources should be factored into estimates of economic growth and well-being. Sustainable accounting: nnp = gnp - dm - dn - r - a. Dn: depreciation of environmental capital (monetary value of environmental decay over a year) R: expenditure required to restore environmental capital (forests, sheries, etc. ) A: expenditure required to avert destruction of environmental capital. The act of choosing - the conscious selection from among alternatives.