Justifying, Characterizing and Indicating Sustainability

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Justifying Sustainability

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. Economic Analysis of Sustainability

      Pages 1-15

   3. Intergenerational Ethics Under Resource Constraints

      Pages 19-32

   4. Justifying Sustainability

      • Geir B. Asheim, Wolfgang Buchholz, Bertil Tungodden

      Pages 33-51

   5. Resolving Distributional Conflicts Between Generations

      • Geir B. Asheim, Bertil Tungodden

      Pages 53-62

   6. The Malleability of Undiscounted Utilitarianism as a Criterion of Intergenerational Justice

      • Geir B. Asheim, Wolfgang Buchholz

      Pages 63-82

   7. Rawlsian Intergenerational Justice as a Markov-perfect Equilibrium in a Resource Technology

      Pages 83-101

   8. Unjust Intergenerational Allocations

      Pages 103-122

3. Characterizing Sustainability

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 123-123

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   2. The Hartwick Rule: Myths and Facts

      • Geir B. Asheim, Wolfgang Buchholz, Cees Withagen

      Pages 125-145

   3. Hartwick's Rule in Open Economies

      Pages 147-153

   4. Capital Gains and ‘Net National Product' in Open Economies

      Pages 155-169

   5. Characterizing Sustainability: The Converse of Hartwick's Rule

      • Cees Withagen, Geir B. Asheim

      Pages 171-177

   6. On the Sustainable Program in Solow's Model

      • Cees Withagen, Geir B. Asheim, Wolfgang Buchholz

      Pages 179-189

   7. Maximin, Discounting, and Separating Hyperplanes

      • Cees Withagen, Geir B. Asheim, Wolfgang Buchholz

      Pages 191-194

4. Indicating Sustainability

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 195-195

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   2. Green National Accounting for Welfare and Sustainability: A Taxonomy of Assumptions and Results

      Pages 197-213

   3. Net National Product as an Indicator of Sustainability

      Pages 215-223

   4. Adjusting Green NNP to Measure Sustainability

      Pages 225-240

During the last two decades, I have subjected the concept of sustainable development to economic analysis. To a great extent this work has been done in co-operation with my co-authors Wolfgang Buchholz, Bertil Tungodden, Martin Weitzman and Cees Withagen, and it has lead to a series of journal articles. This book presents the results of this research program. The original articles are reproduced. However, I have updated information about references and corrected a few mistakes (mostly typographical). STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK This book consists of 19 chapters. Chapter 1 is new, written as a guide to the book and its content. It also gives an up-to-date survey of relevant literature and its relation to the later chapters. Chapters 2–19 are reproductions of published articles. The articles are organized into three parts. Part I, which comprises Chaps.2–7, is concerned with the normative question of how to justify sustainability. Part II, consisting of Chaps.8–13, considers how sustainable development can be characterized. Finally, in Part III, Chaps.14–19 are devoted to the problem of indicating sustainability. Within each part, the initial chapter – i.e., Chap.2 for Part I, Chap.8 for Part II and Chap.14 for Part III – is an overview article that functions as a survey for the later chapters in the corresponding part.

• development
• economic growth
• environmental economics
• growth
• resource economics
• social choice theory
• sustainability
• sustainable development

• University of Oslo, NO-0317, Blindern, Norway

  Geir B. Asheim

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