CHAPTER 10: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

• Global Warming


  Increasing average air and ocean temperatures, attributed largely to human industrial, forestry, and agricultural activities emitting greenhouse gasses
• Climate change


  Nontransient altering of underlying climate, such as increased average temperature, decreased annual precipitation, or greater average intensity of droughts or storms
• Environmental accounting


  The incorporation of environmental benefits and costs into the quantitative analysis of economic activities
• Environmental capital


  The portion of a country's overall capital assets that directly relate to the Environment—for example, forests, soil quality, and ground water
• Sustainable development


  A pattern of development that permits future generations to live at least as well as the current generation, generally requiring at least a minimum environmental protection
• Sustainable net national income (NNI*)


  An environmental accounting measure of the total annual income that can be consumed without diminishing the overall capital assets of a nation (including environmental capital)
• Environmental Kuznets curve


  A graph reflecting the concept that pollution and other environmental degradation first rises and then falls with increases in income per capita
• Biomass fuels


  Any combustible organic matter that may be used as fuel, such as firewood, dung, or agricultural residues
• Desertification


  The transformation of a region into dry, barren land with little or no capacity to sustain life without an artificial source of water
• Soil erosion


  Loss of valuable topsoils resulting from overuse of farmland, and deforestation and consequent flooding of farmland
• Deforestation


  The clearing of forested land either for agricultural purposes or for logging and for use as firewood
• Total net benefit


  The sum of net benefits to all consumers
• Marginal cost


  The addition to total cost incurred by the producer as a result of increasing output by one more unit
• Producer surplus


  Excess of what a producer of a good receives and the minimum amount the producer would be willing to accept because of a positive-sloping marginal cost curve
• Consumer surplus


  Excess utility over price derived by consumers because of a negative-sloping demand curve
• Scarcity rent


  The premium or additional rent charged for the use of a resource or good that is in fixed or limited supply
• Present value


  The discounted value at the present time of a sum of money to be received in the future
• Marginal net benefit


  The benefit derived from the last unit of a good minus its cost
• Property rights


  The acknowledged right to use and benefit from a tangible (e.g., land) or intangible (e.g., intellectual) entity that may include owning, using, deriving income from, selling, and disposing
• Common property resource


  A resource that is collectively or publicly owned and allocated under a system of unrestricted access, or as self-regulated by users
• Externality


  Any benefit or cost borne by an individual economic unit that is a direct consequence of another's behavior
• Internalization


  The process whereby external environmental or other costs are borne by the producers or consumers who generate them, usually through the imposition of pollution or consumption taxes
• Public good


  An entity that provides benefits to all individuals simultaneously and whose enjoyment by one person in no way diminishes that of another
• Public bad


  An entity that imposes costs on groups of individuals simultaneously
• Free-rider problem


  The situation in which people can secure benefits that someone else pays for
• Clean technologies


  Technologies that by design produce less pollution and waste and use resources more efficiently
• Private costs


  The direct monetary outlays or costs of an individual economic unit
• Pollution tax


  A tax levied on the quantity of pollutants released into the physical environment
• Social cost


  The full cost of an economic decision, whether private or public, to society as a whole
• Absorptive capacity


  The capacity of an ecosystem to assimilate potential pollutants
• Greenhouse gasses


  Gasses that trap heat within the earth's atmosphere and can thus contribute to global warming
• Biodiversity


  The variety of life forms within an ecosystem
• Global public good


  A public good, whose benefits reach across national borders and population groups
• Debt-for-nature swap


  The exchange of foreign debt held by an organization for a larger quantity of domestic debt that is used to finance the preservation of a natural resource or environment in the debtor country