David Pearce
David Pearce is Professor of
Environmental Economics at
University College London. He was
elected in 1989 to the United Nations
‘Global 500’ Roll of Honour for
services to the world environment; he
won the Guiseppe Mazzotti prize for
literature in 1991 for Blueprint for a
Green Economy; was awarded the OBE
by Her Majesty the Queen in June
2000 for services to sustainable
development, and the degree of D.Sc.
Honoris Causa from the University of
East Anglia in 2001. He is the author
or editor of over 50 books on
cost–benefit analysis and
environmental economics, and the
author or co-author of over 300 papers
in learned journals. He was personal
Advisor to the UK Secretary of State
for the Environment from 1989 to
1992, and has advised governments,
international organisations such as the
World Bank, UNDP, the UN, OECD,
and major corporations worldwide. He
is currently preparing a major
advanced text in environment and
economic development, focusing on
developing country issues, along with
several other texts.
Papers Published in World Economics:
Paradoxes in Biodiversity Conservation
Biodiversity is important for human wellbeing, but it is declining. Measures to
conserve biodiversity are essential but may be a waste of effort if several
paradoxes are not addressed. The highest levels of diversity are in nations least
able to practise effective conservation. The flow of funds to international
biodiversity conservation appears trivial when compared to the scale of
biodiversity loss. International agreements may not actually protect or conserve
more than what would have been conserved anyway. Protected Areas may be
‘paper parks’, protected in name but not in practice. The very act of protection
may contain self-destructive features because local communities can easily suffer
loss of income and assets, making them unwilling partners in the act of
protection. In turn, this places the protected area at risk and may also divert
unsustainable harvesting activities to non-protected but equally diverse
ecosystems. In tackling these issues the real biodiversity challenge is redesigning
conservation effort, making it truly additional and making it compatible with
poverty reduction.
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Does European Union Environmental Policy Pass a Cost–Benefit Test?
Most European Union countries are committed to some form of regulatory
impact assessment, and in some cases these assessments involve the formal use
of cost–benefit analysis. The European Treaty of Union also calls for a
comparison of costs and benefits for all European regulations. Despite this, only a
limited number of regulations have been subject to cost–benefit analysis. Using a
variety of sources, this paper investigates whether or not a selection of major
environmental regulations would pass a cost–benefit test. The general answer is
that, while some do, most do not. This finding has major implications for the
efficiency of European environmental legislation, and reflects on the willingness
of Member States to sign up to inefficient regulation.
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Valuing the Future
One of the most controversial areas of economics is the practice of discounting:
attaching a lower weight to future costs and benefits than present costs and
benefits. Discounting appears to offend notions of sustainable development and
the interests of future generations. Recent advances in the theory of discounting
hold out strong hope that the ‘tyranny of discounting’ can be avoided through the
use of time varying discount rates (TVDRs). This paper reviews the recent
rationales for TVDRs and applies the results to issues such as nuclear power and
global warming control.
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Save the Planet: Sell Carbon
This article examines the political economy of agreements on global greenhouse emissions reduction. The author explains the complex emissions trading mechanisms set up under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and considers the likely size and structure of a future market for emissions credits.
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