Natural Resource Accounting and Economic Development : Theory and Practice

In this important book some of the world's leading scholars in environmental economics explore the theoretical and empirical problems to be solved if policymakers are to develop accounts to capture the sustainability of economic development. The development indicators that have been used over the last half century and more, GDP and GNP, fail to record the change in the value of a nation's natural or environmental capital. The contributions to this volume consider why this is so, and what is required of genuine sustainability measures. They include both theoretical papers on the identification of sustainability measures in optimising and non-optimising economies, and empirical applications of the theory of green accounting to different sectors in developing countries. The extensive introduction surveys the state-of-the-art on natural resource accounting for economic development. The book makes a substantial contribution to the development of an important field of environmental economics. It should be read by all environment and development economists, and policymakers with a particular interest in natural resource accounting, sustainability and development.