Environmental economists unite!
I get called a rampant greenie/hippie by other economists for my interest in environmental issues. On the other hand, environmental activist types tell me I’m a brainwashed tool of the capitalist hegemony. For a long time I’ve been wracked with insecurity, but now John Whitehead assured me I’m not alone and explains why he thinks nobody understands environmental economists:
- “Environmentalists tend to see only the good… in environmental policies. Environmental economists see the good and the bad … and environmentalists seem to go ballistic about how evil we are.”
- “…non-economists don’t trust incentives. They don’t think that people’s behavior changes in expected ways to changes in benefits and costs” so they prefer direct command-and-control regulation over the use of incentives.
- Non-market valuation: “to other economists our methods seem bogus since we consider behavior that is generally outside the market… environmentalists either say it is immoral and/or crass to put dollar values on intangible benefits or that these benefits are infinitely valued.”
He asks if that’s being paranoid, but I think he’s spot on. I can empathise with every one of the things he says, but the one that stands out most is this:
“Environmental economists are sometimes baffled why everyone doesn’t see [their methods] as a good thing.”
Amen!
I’m not an environmental economist – but I’m definitely not against them.
It is a great school of thought – like a lot of feminist economics. I think you will find more anti environmental economists sentiment from non-economists than you will from most economists …
Although I would say that feminist and environmental economics both have a normative tinge on top of standard economics – and if there is any conflict is likely to be on that area. Now, there SHOULD be conflict in that area – after all, normative assumptions are supposed to be the more contentious ones that require strong defence.
If you ever want to read a reader’s feedback 🙂 , I rate this article for four from five. Detailed info, but I just have to go to that damn msn to find the missed parts. Thank you, anyway!
This topic is quite hot in the net at the moment. What do you pay the most attention to while choosing what to write about?