Some reflections on project economics and environmental issues: A development economist’s perspective

This paper discusses briefly some of the outstanding theoretical and operational issues relating to the application of environmental economics to the appraisal of projects. Section 1 considers whether it is necessary to take a global as opposed to a national focus in project work and considers some of the implications of this perspective. Section 2 addresses the difficulty of valuing diverse environmental effects in monetary terms. Section 3 introduces the problem of time and notes the recent debates on the link between discounting and the environment. Finally section 4 discusses recent attempts to deal with problems of human health in project work.