Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/23294
Year of Publication: 
2004
Series/Report no.: 
Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge No. 115-04
Publisher: 
Universität Siegen, Fakultät III, Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht, Siegen
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different "utilitarian" social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman species for land and prey biomass. We characterize and compare the efficient allocations when social welfare is anthropocentric (only consumers have positive welfare weights), and when social welfare is nonanthropocentric (all species have positive welfare weights). Not surprisingly, biocentric social welfare calls for suspending all economic activities. It is more important, however, that both anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism make the case for nature protection through different channels. Our analysis suggests that one may dispense with the concept of nonanthropocentric social welfare provided that in the anthropocentric framework the consumers' intrinsic valuation of nature is properly accounted for.
Subjects: 
anthropocentrism
biocentrism
welfare
nature protection
JEL: 
Q20
D60
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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