Resources
Funds and stocks
While conventional economics tries to approach natural resources through monetary means, ecological economics stresses the need to make the biogeochemical characteristics of resources explicit. This allows for a distinction between …
Customary rights and legal pluralism
‘Customary rights’ refer to established, traditional patterns of norms that can be observed within a particular socio-cultural setting (Thompson, 1991). Sets of customary rights and obligations may be called customary …
Joint forest management
Originating in the early 1970s, the concept of joint forest management (JFM) is the official and popular term in India and elsewhere for partnerships in forest management involving both the …
GDP accounting and critiques
Definition and methods Macroeconomic accounting establishes the size of the economy by measuring the Gross Domestic Product. It is called ‘gross’, because the depreciation and amortisation of capital (deduction of capital …
Well-being
The term ‘well-being’ is most commonly used to describe what is ultimately good for a person. The question of what well-being consists of is of great importance for various disciplines, …
Public participation in environmental decision-making
There is a growing body of literature on public participation in environmental assessment and decision-making, within which several authors (e.g. Antunes et al., 2009; NRC, 2008) have proposed a set …
Institutions
Contrary to standard economic theory emphasising the role of individuals, ecological economists such as Daniel Bromley (2006) or Arild Vatn (2005) have highlighted the prominent role of institutions in shaping …
Tragedy of the Commons: Hardin’s mistake
‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ stems from Garrett Hardin’s influential article of 1968 in which he referred to all common-pool natural resources that were not government or privately owned. As …
Property rights
In standard economics, property rights refer to a bundle of entitlements defining an owner’s rights, privileges and limitations to the use of a resource. An efficient structure of property rights …
Externalities
Social costs – or externalities, in the language of standard economics – are harmful effects that are not internalized in the production costs of enterprises. Therefore, market prices do not …
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