Ambivalent Joint Production And The Natural Environment: An Economic And Thermodynamic Analysis (contributions To Economics)

Many environmental damages are caused by substances which come into existence as undesired joint outputs in the production of desired goods. Whether an output is desired or not, however, is not an inherent property of the substance itself but depends on the context of production. This book studies the role of a potential ambivalence of joint outputs for the description and analysis of dynamic economy-environment interactions and for the design of efficient environmental policy. This is done in an interisciplinary way: methods and insights from thermodynamics, engineering sciences, economics and the methodology of economics are combined in order to develop an encompassing view on the complex and multivarious phenomenon of ambivalent joint production. By using the concept of joint production as a unifying framework for describing and analyzing the relations between human economic activity and the surrounding natural environment this book contributes to a critical and constructive assessment of the traditional environmental economic approach. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-19 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Joint production and the natural environment....Pages 23-44 Thermodynamics....Pages 45-64 All production is joint production....Pages 65-87 Front Matter....Pages 89-93 The classical position and its early critics....Pages 94-101 The abandonment of classical theory....Pages 102-113 Neoclassical theory from partial to general equilibrium analysis....Pages 114-142 The role of joint production for the construction of economic theory....Pages 143-153 Front Matter....Pages 155-155 The concept of joint production....Pages 157-184 Ambivalence of joint products....Pages 185-230 Joint products and irreversibility....Pages 231-254 Non-convexity of the production set....Pages 255-289 Ambivalent joint production: Putting the issues in perspective....Pages 290-294 Back Matter....Pages 295-324 Many environmental damages are caused by substances which come into existence as undesired joint outputs in the production of desired goods. Whether an output is desired or not, however, is not an inherent property of the substance itself but depends on the context of production. This book studies in an interdisciplinary way the role of the potential ambivalence of joint outputs for the description and analysis of dynamic economy-environment interactions and for the design of environmental policy. Environmental damage can be caused by undesired by-products of industry. This interdisciplinary study of by-products examines whether they are inherently undesirable, and describes and analyzes economy-environment interactions for the design of environmental policy. One speaks of joint production when several outputs emerge from the same productive activity.