Human well-being and the natural environment / Partha Dasgupta.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dasgupta.

Contributor:

Pārtha.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human ecology.

Natural resources--Management.

Natural resources.

Sustainable development.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.)

Place of Publication:

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment, Partha Dasgupta explores ways to measure the quality of life. Although the problem pervades a number of academic disciplines, it is not confined to the academic realm. International organizations regularly publish cross-country estimates of the quality of life, journalists and commentators publicize them, and national governments are obliged to take note of them. Today, quality-of-life indices broker political arguments andtogether form a coin that even helps purchase economic and social policy.It is therefore ironic that indices of human well-b

Contents:

Contents; Summary and Guide; Introduction: Means and Ends; I.1. Making Comparisons; I.2. Disagreements over Facts and Values; I.3. Valuation and Evaluation in Kakotopia; PART I: VALUING AND EVALUATING; Prologue; 1. The Notion of Well-Being; 1.1. Personal to the Social; 1.2. Welfare and Well-Being; 1.3. Human Rights as Constituents of Well-Being; 1.4. Positive and Negative Rights; 1.5. Aggregation in Theory; 1.6. Numerical Indices: Complete vs. Partial Ordering; 1.7. Complete vs. Partial Comparability of Well-Being; *1. Ordering Social States; *1.1. Definitions; *1.2. Efficient Liberalism

2. Why Measure Well-Being?2.1. Measuring Economic Activity; 2.2. Comparing Groups; 2.3. Comparing Localities; 2.4. Measuring Sustainable Well-Being; 2.5. Finding Criteria for Policy Evaluation; 2.6. Four Senses of Plurality; 3. Constituents and Determinants of Well-Being; 3.1. Constituents or Determinants?; 3.2. Valuation, Trust, and Institutions; 3.3. Happiness; 3.4. Imitation and the Demonstration Effect; PART II: MEASURING CURRENT WELL-BEING; Prologue; 4. Theory; 4.1. Citizenship: Civil, Political, and Socio-Economic; 4.2. The Need for Parsimony; 4.3. Exotic Goods and Basic Needs

4.4. Civic Attitudes, Entitlements, and Democracy4.5. Aggregation in Practice; 4.6. Cardinal or Ordinal Indices; 5. Current Quality of Life in Poor Countries; 5.1. The Data; 5.2. Borda Ranking; 5.3. GNP and Current Well-Being; 5.4. The Contemporary Poor World; 5.5. Civil Rights, Democracy, and Economic Progress: Theory; 5.6. Civil Rights, Democracy, and Economic Progress: Illustration; 5.7. Geography of Poverty Traps; 5.8. The Human Development Index: Development as What?; PART III: MEASURING WELL-BEING OVER TIME; Prologue; 6. Intergenerational Well-Being; 6.1. The Ramsey Formulation

6.2. Discounting the Future6.3. Public and Private Ethics; 6.4. Population Growth; 6.5. Uncertainty; *6. Intergenerational Conflicts; *6.1. Present vs. the Future; *6.2. Declining Discount Rates; 7. Economic Institutions and the Natural Environment; 7.1. Markets; 7.2. The Local Community; 7.3. The State; 7.4. Property Rights and Management: A Schemata; 7.5. Global and Local Environmental Problems; 7.6. Technological Biases; 8. Valuing Goods; 8.1. Accounting Prices; 8.2. Necessities vs. Luxuries; 8.3. Biodiversity and Substitution Possibilities; 8.4. Estimating Accounting Prices

8.5. Total vs. Incremental Values9. Wealth and Well-Being; 9.1. Sustainable Development; 9.2. Capital Assets and Institutions; 9.3. Genuine Investment: Theory; 9.4. Why not NNP?; 9.5. What Does Productivity Growth Measure?; 9.6. Accounting for the Environment; 9.7. Genuine Investment: Applications; PART IV: EVALUATING POLICIES IN IMPERFECT ECONOMIES; Prologue; 10. Policy Reforms; 10.1. Policy Change as Perturbation; 10.2. Project Evaluation Criterion; 10.3. Two Applications; 10.4. Taxes and Regulations as Policies; 10.5. Hard and Soft Prices; 11. Discounting Future Consumption; 11.1. Why

11.2. How

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-926719-7

0-19-153011-5

9786612007118

1-282-00711-4

OCLC:

63294626