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This paper presents the author's opinion on articles about the environment-economy-pollution complex published in the May 1973 issue of the American Economic Review. The fundamental and ineluctable obstacle in the way of ranking alternative pollution-control programs by means of mathematical models is that we have no satisfactory way of measuring the social cost of pollution or of valuing the external effects and public goods involved. A corollary to our inability to measure the social cost of pollution is the fact that those costs are excluded from the gross national product measures of economic performance. Pollution abatement increases industrial productivity at the same time that it increases costs of production, but Evans' method catches only the cost increases. I have to mention a couple of gaps in our technological knowledge that introduce errors into all such models. The fact is that we know very little about the technology of pollution production or abatement. And how pollution control policies should be designed to take advantage of the as yet undiscovered technologies is even farther beyond reach. What these difficulties do mean is that the effort to construct realistic models that will yield quantitative recommendations is futile. The value and true purpose of the models lies in a different direction.

The article presents comments of authors on a paper by Anthony Fisher, John Krutilla and Charles Cicchetti, titled "The Economics of Environmental Preservation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," published in the September 1972 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." Fisher, Krutilla and Cicchetti concerning the preservation of natural environments, which is fundamentally based on the assumption that in certain instances, conversion of natural environments for development purposes represents an irreversible investment, developed an argument. Art economic model was proposed for the allocation of natural environments between preservation and development. Fisher, Krutilla and Cicchetti continued with an interesting discussion of concepts regarding the measure of benefits and costs for evaluating projects involving the development of natural environments and concluded with a case study of Hells Canyon Project. Authors of the article found a basic problem in their paper, which resulted from their nebulous and somewhat inconsistent distinction between preservation and development options and the relationship of these to irreversible investments.

The article presents comments by authors, on a paper by Anthony Fisher, John Krutilla and Charles Cicchetti, titled "The Economics of Environmental Preservation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," published in the September 1972 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." According to authors, the paper by Fisher, Krutilla and Cicchetti is an important step towards the development of a general method of analysis of economics of environmental preservation. They are also commended for their attempt to adapt their model to the investigation of an important environmental policy question concerning the advisability of hydroelectric development in Hells Canyon region of Snake River. Authors of the article feel, however, that there is room for improvement in their theoretical models and perhaps in the presentation of empirical results. They state that sections I and II of Fisher, Krutilla and Cicchetti's paper consist of the development of an allocation model of some degree of sophistication from which some general conclusions are drawn which are not necessarily true. Authors of the article conclude that Fisher, Krutilla and Cicchetti's analysis in its present state should not be used for policy decision making.

This paper includes a discussion of the nature of environmental impact assessment. Then the role of environmental assessment as an instrument for controlling economic growth is presented. The advantages and disadvantages of the instrument are discussed in detail, including the problem of bias from the incentive structure built into the bureaucracy. An appendix shows some of the problems in the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act which instituted the environmental assessment requirement.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The premise that man resides within a bounded and closed natural environment, an environment with relatively fixed dimensions, has been discussed in many forms for at least three centuries. The idea of a "spaceship earth" has recently caught the imagination and interest of both economists and environmentalists in particular, and the public in general. A basic tenet of this viewpoint is that whatever has been produced, consumed, not recycled and discarded within the sealed" spaceship earth" is still here and will continue to be. Of course, energy dispersion may be offset by nuclear fusion or breeder reactors so that what was previously discarded may be completely reused without seriously impinging on the earth's natural energy reservoirs. Economically and technically-feasible extraterrestrial transportation systems, destruction of wastes by symmetrical anti-wastes, or increased efficiencies in solar energy conversion also may become realities. However, such energy-augmenting technological changes, at least at this time, appear to be in the very distant future. What is of pressing current importance, if we accept the premise of a nearly sealed capsule earth with relatively fixed dimensions in terms of mass-energy and waste assimilative capability, is how rapidly economic growth should proceed. Rather than attempting to dissect the "spaceship earth" premises regarding limited energy reserves and assimilative capability, we take these as given in this paper. We then construct several simple paradigms of an economy confronted with a bounded, closed natural environment and then we analyze how such an economy should optimally produce and consume over time. The next section of the paper deals with an extremely simple model of waste generation, based on the conservation of matter-energy principle, and with the consumption behaviour of the economy's inhabitants assumed to be predetermined. In subsequent sections, the model is generalized to an optimal control problem where consumption and waste generation are allowed to be regulated, and an attempt is made to integrate the non-mutually exclusive processes of resource extraction and waste generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the political economy of environmental quality. The management of common property resources approach is used to commensurate with the character and scale of contemporary environmental pollution problems. A characteristic of most of the postwar discussion is focus on two-party situations. The concept of reciprocal externality has been examined. It explores the implications of bargaining between the parties for the traditional tax solution. Likewise, the relation of property rights to the externalities phenomena and its allocative implications has been clarified.

This article discusses the struggle made by this "Land Economics" magazine for survival. Land Economics presently enjoys top-level support. An examination of the leading scholarly journals in the social sciences throughout the United States clearly reveals the often tenuous nature of their financial backing even in these days of the availability of federal funds for demonstration or innovative projects. In times of depression and wars every scholarly journal endures some financial stringency. This journal has had its share of crises. In 1942, when the magazine was returned to Wisconsin from Northwestern University, there were less than 300 active subscriptions. The transfer of all records including editorial materials and subscription files suffered a three-months' delay in transit. There was no backlog of manuscripts at hand. The war and depression era left other tolls: quality of paper stock was appalling and the magazine was saddled with an unqualified printer. In spite of these handicaps the magazine survived. In this year of 1969, manuscripts are being submitted at a yearly average of over 400.

The article focuses on the reclamation and the production of the Development Plan and Town Maps in industrial regions requiring landscaping and reclamation to improve the economic aspects of the area. It outlines the problem on the difficulties due to delay in the acquisition of land. It is inferred that if negotiations have not been finally completed when the Development Plan becomes operative, all the negotiations will be suspended until details of the area of comprehensive development have been defined and submitted. In addition, if a land has not been shown for a particular use on a County Development Plan, a Town Map has been prepared to provide the use to which the land will be put in the future.

Microeconimics and management science are close relatives in terms of the tools they use. Economics differs primarily in that it studies the performance of entire economic systems and major subsystems. Management science models can be expanded to examine environmental policy and the design of institutions for environmental management. This is illustrated by a quantitative model developed at Resources for the Future which incorporates as submodels natural atmospheric and ecological systems and the political structure of alternative forms of representative government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the author's views on the importance and methods of teaching environmental economics. Importance of understanding relationship between the physical environment and economics; List of references relevant to understanding environmental economics; Perceptions on the behavior of an economist.

Addresses the question of whether the supply of parks and wilderness areas will be more optimal if their provision is entrusted to private enterprise rather than government. Rise of environmental economics; Factors of monopoly, externalities and neighborhood effects, irreversibility and uncertainty.