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Sustainability and the measurement of wealth: further reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2013

Kenneth J. Arrow ,
Partha Dasgupta ,
Lawrence H. Goulder ,
Kevin J. Mumford  and
Kirsten Oleson
Kenneth J. Arrow
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Department of Economics, USA. E-mail: arrow@stanford.edu
Partha Dasgupta
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge; and Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester, UK. E-mail: partha.dasgupta@econ.cam.ac.uk
Lawrence H. Goulder
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. E-mail: goulder@stanford.edu
Kevin J. Mumford
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Purdue University, USA. E-mail: mumford@purdue.edu
Kirsten Oleson
Affiliation:
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawaii, USA. E-mail: koleson@hawaii.edu
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Abstract

The June 2012 issue of Environment and Development Economics published a symposium with considerable focus on our paper, ‘Sustainability and the measurement of wealth’. The Symposium also contained five articles in which other researchers offered valuable comments on our paper. The present note replies to those comments. It clarifies important issues and reveals how important questions relating to sustainability analysis can be fruitfully addressed within our framework. These include questions about the treatment of time, the use of shadow prices and the treatment of transnational externalities. This note also offers new theoretical results that help substantiate our earlier empirical finding that the value of human health is something very different from the value of the consumption permitted by health and survival.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , August 2013 , pp. 504 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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