This paper reviews the policy need for indicators of "sustainable development", and the impetus behind recent moves to establish official indicators. The range of indicators available from current economic theory is then examined. These measures may be divided into those based on flows and those...

This paper presents a new approach for understanding the effects of economic factors on biodiversity change over the long run. We illustrate this approach by studying the determinants of biodiversity change in upland Scotland from 1600 to 2000. The measure of biodiversity used is a proxy for...

"In contingent valuation, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non-negative. In this paper, we investigate the impact of allowing for negative, zero and positive preferences for...

Despite the vital role of utility functional form in welfare measurement, the implications of working with incorrect utility specifications have not been examined in the choice experiments literature. This paper addresses the importance of the specification of both non-monetary attributes and...

The author's purpose is to review the use of cost - benefit analysis (CBA) in environmental policy appraisal, focusing on the United Kingdom. Examples of the use of CBA in this context are provided, and the recent historical background to its use explained. The main strengths and weaknesses of...

We estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time: the change in augmented green net national product (GNNP), and the interest on augmented genuine savings (GS). Yearly calculations are given for each measure for Scotland during 1992-99....