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Recently, the public attention has turned toward the intricate interrelation between economic growth and global warming. This book focuses on this nexus but broadens the framework to study the issue. Growth is seen as global growth, which affects the global environment and climate change. Global growth, in particular high economic growth rates, imply a fast depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources. Thus this book deals with the impact of the environment and the effect of the exhaustive use of natural resources on economic growth and welfare of market economies as well as the reverse linkage. It is arranged in three parts: Part I of the book discusses the environment and growth. There, Greiner and Semmler incorporate the role of environmental pollution into modern endogenous growth models and use recently developed dynamic methods and techniques to derive appropriate abatement activities that policymakers can institute. Part II looks at global climate change using these same growth models. Here, too, the authors provide direct and transparent policy implications. More specifically, the authors favour tax measures, such as a carbon tax, over emission trading as instruments of mitigation policies. Part III evaluates the use and overuse of renewable and non-renewable resources in the context of a variety of dynamic models. They, in particular, consider the cases when resources interact as an ecological system and analyze issues of ownership of resources as well as policy measures to avoid the overuse of resources. In addition, not only intertemporal resource allocation but also the eminent issues relating to intertemporal inequities, as well as policy measures to overcome them, are discussed in each part of the book.
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The Global Environment, Natural Resources, and Economic Growth This page intentionally left blank The Global Environment, Natural Resources, and Economic Growth Alfred Greiner and Willi Semmler 1 2008 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greiner, Alfred. The global environment, natural resources, and economic growth/ Alfred Greiner, Willi Semmler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-532823-3 1. Economic development—Environmental aspects. 2. Pollution—Economic aspects. 3. Natural resources—Management. I. Semmler, Willi. II. Title. HD75.6.G745 2008 333.7—dc22q 2007047160 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper “We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have only borrowed it from our children.” —Ancient Proverb “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life.” —Hans Jonas (1903–1993), German-born philosopher, taught at the New School, 1955–1976 This page intentionally left blank Preface Recently public attention has turned toward