Econ Writing Group Info and Literature Review

[Amanda Raster]

Hi all -

 

Thanks for volunteering to participate in the Economic Definitions writing group. Our first conference call will likely be scheduled for Tuesday, 5/25 or Friday, 5/28. I will confirm the time on Wednesday.

 

In the meantime, those who volunteered to participate in the literature review can get started. Rob Neenan and Taylor Reid volunteered to search for documents OUTSIDE of the library. Eric Landen, Bryan Endres, Jody Endres, and Jesse Singerman will review documents in the Reference Library. As you will see when you visit the site, documents are sorted by category:  Standards, Guidance Documents & Resources, Metrics, Research & Analysis, etc. Although the site is equipped with a search function (top right corner of each page), it does not allow you to search by page or category. Instead, when you enter a keyword, it will pull up all documents on the site that contain that your keyword. So, in order to make sure that all of the documents are covered, volunteers will be assigned to specific document categories. You will either have to skim through the titles and take a guess at which documents may contain concepts relating to agricultural economics, or you will have to open up each file and use the document search function. I will leave that level of detail up to you, as well as how you wish to document your findings. However, if someone wants to recommend a consistent format, feel free!

 

Literature Review Assignments

Eric Landen – Standards (A-E), Research & Analysis, Issue Papers

Bryan Endres – Guidance Documents, Regulatory

Jody Endres –Standards (F-Z)

Jesse Singerman – Metrics, Other, Articles

 

Let me know if this sounds reasonable, or if I missed anyone for the literature review. I will be checking my email on and off through Wednesday of this week and can make adjustments if necessary…then I disappear into vacation mode until Monday.

 

Thanks everyone!

Amanda

 

Amanda Raster
Sustainability Standards Development
Leonardo Academy Inc.
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[Rob Neenan]

FYI

I did some searching and I think that I have found something relevant to the discussion.  Enclosed is a copy of a  review of the literature on this subject that was performed by Pezzey & Toman, Resources for the Future, in 2002.  They reviewed 25 years worth of refereed journal articles on the economics of sustainability with emphasis on issues related to inter-generation sustainability.  If you don’t want to wade through the extensive text, the authors summarized their findings as follows:

 

For all the legitimate criticism that can be leveled at the somewhat amorphous nature of

sustainability, we believe some important basic lessons have emerged from the sustainability studies

covered or referred to in this review.

 

First, there is no clear understanding of, let alone consensus around, what constitutes a sustainability

objective or standard. It is clearly more than a simple PV criterion. But what it is, who decides what it

is, and how that decision is made, continue to bedevil analysts of all stripes—just as similar questions

about individual and social responsibility have been torments for millennia. We will not find answers

to this question by resorting only to a priori philosophical constructs.

 

Second, efficiency and equity are different concepts, and economists need to maintain this distinction

when analyzing issues related to long-term economic progress and the natural environment. In

particular, values of long-term environmental costs and benefits ultimately depend on some implicit

or explicit assumptions about the intergenerational distribution of income, hence about the current

generation’s obligations (if any) to future generations.

 

Third, economic analytical frameworks typically contain implicit as well as explicit presumptions

about the prospects for both resource substitution and resource-augmenting technical innovation.

These assumptions may or may not prove to be satisfactory, but the empirical foundation underneath

them is not as strong as it could be.

 

Finally, and more generally, the dearth of empirical work on what sustainability might mean for

environmental and economic valuations, and the continued lack of concrete understanding of what

“sustainability policies” might entail in practice, indicate the scale of continued intellectual challenges

in the field.

 

So, a number of ecomomists have evaluated the issue of inter-generation equity before and a number of important issues remain unresolved.   

 

Rob Neenan

Vice President, Environmental Affairs and Sustainability

United Fresh Produce Association

1901 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Suite 1100

Washington, DC  20006

phone:  202-303-3400

Fax:      202-303-3433

e-mail: rne...@unitedfresh.org

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[t...@geeclaw.com]

Amanda,

 

I'll offer to help my co-author and colleague Bryan Endres with the reading on the regulatory side, and also assist Tayler and Rob on the outside sources. 

 

The main reason for the "Ethics" in my law firm's name is the undergrad degree that I got from the University of Michigan in Normative Ethics, with an emphasis on the environmental ethos of JJ Rousseau (got some high honors for the thesis, 1985), so it will be fun to dust off that training for this project.

 

As for Resources for the Future, I'm co-authoring a new, extensively peer-reviewed article in Nature Biotech  with Roger Sedjo (RtF) and would be happy to coordinate with them on any new content to add to what Rob sent below.

 

All the best,

 

Tom

 

Thomas P. Redick

 Global Environmental Ethics Counsel

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[Eric Landen]

Thanks Rob for sending that paper along, I haven't read it in detail yet (will do so soon) however am familiar with many of the sources/authors cited, this looks like a great piece of material to add to our review.  The one thing I would mention is that there's been a considerable amount of economic valuation research done since 2002 (at least for the environmental side of the equation, I haven't looked at Social as much), thus we are starting to get a handle on the data gap that was mentioned in the paper. Will send some more recent research along as I get a chance to pull it together.

Thx,

Eric

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[Rob Neenan]

Eric:

Thanks, I look forward to reviewing the articles that you collect.  However, it’s been a long time since I took my graduate classes in econometrics and microeconomic theory, so looking at equations makes my head hurt at this point.

 

Regards,

 

Rob Neenan

Vice President, Environmental Affairs and Sustainability

United Fresh Produce Association

1901 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Suite 1100

Washington, DC  20006

phone:  202-303-3400

Fax:      202-303-3433

e-mail: rne...@unitedfresh.org