This paper articulates the necessity of emphasizing the absolute level of environmental degradation in different countries as a guide to understanding the links between such degradation and economic development. We argue the case for developing a composite environmental degradation index (EDI)...

A central issue in the context of the environment is that of its sustainability. This presumes the development of an index that encapsulates both the current state of the environment as well as its potential to provide support for future human activity. Once the broad contours are accepted the...

We extend the analysis of Jha and Murthy (2003) to relate consumption to environmental degradation (conceived of as a composite) within a cross-country framework. We use the method of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to construct an Environmental Degradation Index (EDI) for each country and...