Category Archives: Non-market valuation

The Economics of Nature

We went for the first time this year to the Orono Bog Boardwalk on Monday morning.  This is an absolute gem of a resource for the Penobscot Valley community, giving people easy access to a part of our Acadian landscape that is not often so easily visited.  If you have never been there you will […]

Inequality and Concern for the Environment

If you have read Stirring the Pot blog very much (thank you), you will have noticed two persistent themes —  inequality and the environment. Examples of bogs on inequality include: Class Warfare? Shame on Us The Crisis of Our Age: Part II Welfare Economics Among those on environmental issues are: When Did We Stop Worrying […]

The Northern Bobwhite Calls for a New Ethic

For the past few weeks we have heard a Northern Bobwhite singing in our neighborhood. This is a bird we associate with Southern New England, so we were surprised to hear it in Eastern Maine.  My first thought was,  here is yet another bird whose range has moved north in response to climate change, a […]

Pennies for Puffins

In the last two decades of the 20th Century, environmental economists made tremendous strides in developing techniques to measure economic values when there are no markets (they call these “non-market valuation”).  These efforts grew out of the criticism of the environmental statutes adopted in the 1970s like the Clean Air Act or the Endangered Species […]