IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aue/wpaper/1413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Environmental Sustainability and Economic Development: Cost Benefit Analysis for Sustainable Development

Author

Listed:
  • Anastasios Xepapadeas

Abstract

Sustainable development, environmental sustainability, green economies and green growth are issues which are of great importance for both the research and the policy agenda. The present paper clearly defines the concepts of sustainability and environmental sustainability and provides a conceptual framework for developing sustainability-founded cost benefit rules. It shows that a certain policy cannot necessarily simultaneously satisfy sustainable development and environmental sustainability objectives, the development of green economies, and the attainment of development or green growth.This is important for decision makers because it suggests using more than one criterion depending on the combination of the objectives to be pursued.The cost benefit rules presented in this paper could provide a basis for a clear distinction among objectives and for project selection mechanisms that promote single or multiple objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2014. "Environmental Sustainability and Economic Development: Cost Benefit Analysis for Sustainable Development," DEOS Working Papers 1413, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:aue:wpaper:1413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wpa.deos.aueb.gr/docs/Environmental.Sustainability.and.Economic.Development.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hamilton, Kirk & Clemens, Michael, 1999. "Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 333-356, May.
    2. Riley, John G., 1980. "The just rate of depletion of a natural resource," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 291-307, December.
    3. Arrow, Kenneth J. & Dasgupta, Partha & Goulder, Lawrence H. & Mumford, Kevin J. & Oleson, Kirsten, 2012. "Sustainability and the measurement of wealth," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 317-353, June.
    4. John Hartwick, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investment of Rents from Exhaustible Resources in a Two Sector Model," Working Paper 281, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    5. Xepapadeas, Anastasios & Stefan, Joan, 2014. "Introduction: 20 years later," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 271-284, June.
    6. R. M. Solow, 1974. "Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 29-45.
    7. Pezzey, J.C.V.John C. V., 2004. "One-sided sustainability tests with amenities, and changes in technology, trade and population," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 613-631, July.
    8. Hartwick, John M, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 972-974, December.
    9. John C. V. Pezzey, 1997. "Sustainability Constraints versus "Optimality" versus Intertemporal Concern, and Axioms versus Data," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(4), pages 448-466.
    10. Kenneth Arrow & Partha Dasgupta & Karl-Göran Mäler, 2003. "Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(4), pages 647-685, December.
    11. Malcolm Pemberton & David Ulph, 2001. "MeasuringIncome and Measuring Sustainability," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(1), pages 25-40, March.
    12. Robert M. Solow, 1974. "The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 12, pages 257-276, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Pezzey, J., 1992. "Sustainable Development Concepts; An Economic Analysis," Papers 2, World Bank - The World Bank Environment Paper.
    14. Hamilton, Kirk, 1994. "Green adjustments to GDP," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 155-168, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cristina López & Rocío Ruíz-Benítez & Carmen Vargas-Machuca, 2019. "On the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Technological Innovations in Urban Bus Transport: The EU Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    2. Vouvaki, Dimitra & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2008. "Changes in social welfare and sustainability: Theoretical issues and empirical evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 473-484, October.
    3. Geir B. Asheim & Rintaro Yamaguchi, 2023. "Comprehensive National Accounting for Carbon Emissions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10562, CESifo.
    4. McGrath, Luke & Hynes, Stephen & McHale, John, 2019. "Augmenting the World Bank's estimates: Ireland's genuine savings through boom and bust," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    5. John C. V. Pezzey, 2004. "Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(2), pages 339-359, June.
    6. Adrian Boos, 2015. "Genuine Savings as an Indicator for “Weak” Sustainability: Critical Survey and Possible Ways forward in Practical Measuring," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-37, April.
    7. Perrings, Charles, 2014. "Environment and development economics 20 years on," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 333-366, June.
    8. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2020. "Linking Sustainable Development Assessment in Ireland and the European Union with Economic Theory," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(2), pages 327-355.
    9. Bazhanov, Andrei V., 2015. "Inefficiency and sustainability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 210-216.
    10. Dimitra Vouvaki & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2005. "Criteria for Assessing Sustainable Development: Theoretical Issues and Empirical Evidence for the Case of Greece," Working Papers 0511, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    11. McLaughlin, Eoin & Ducoing, Cristián & Hanley, Nick, 2024. "Challenges of wealth-based sustainability metrics: A critical appraisal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    12. Mubashir Qasim & Les Oxley & Eoin McLaughlin, 2020. "Genuine savings as a test of New Zealand weak sustainability," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 89-127, January.
    13. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2022. "The Air we Breathe: Estimates of Air Pollution Extended Genuine Savings for Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 161-188, March.
    14. Toman, Michael & Pezzey, John C., 2002. "The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-03, Resources for the Future.
    15. Koji Tokimatsu & Louis Dupuy & Nick Hanley, 2019. "Using Genuine Savings for Climate Policy Evaluation with an Integrated Assessment Model," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 281-307, January.
    16. Louis Dupuy & Matthew Agarwala, 2014. "International trade and sustainable development," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 25, pages 399-417, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Bazhanov, A., 2011. "The Dependence of the Potential Sustainability of a Resource Economy on the Initial State: a Comparison of Models Using the Example of Russian Oil Extraction," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, issue 12, pages 77-100.
    18. Eoin McLaughlin & Cristián Ducoing & Les Oxley, 2024. "Tracing Sustainability in the Long Run: Genuine Savings Estimates 1850–2018," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods: A National Accounts Perspective, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Rintaro Yamaguchi, 2021. "Genuine Savings and Sustainability with Resource Diffusion," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(2), pages 451-471, October.
    20. Asheim, Geir B. & Hartwick, John M. & Yamaguchi, Rintaro, 2023. "Sustainable per capita consumption under population growth," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainable development; wellbeing; comprehensive investment; accounting prices; cost benefit analysis; environmental sustainability; green economies; green growth;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aue:wpaper:1413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ekaterini Glynou (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diauegr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.