A week ago, I sat down to write an end of year blog post. My colleague Joie had assigned me the task, “2020 sucked but here’s some good news.” It felt overwhelming and impossible. What good news could I possibly write about, during a raging pandemic, ongoing environmental gloom, protests against injustice all over the …
The one-two punch of recession-pandemic this year has made vulnerability a more pressing topic globally. While resiliency has been discussed in our previous blog post, how to develop it requires a thorough understanding of where the metaphorical weakest link is. COVID-19 has proven to be an accelerant in many industries both in terms of developing …
We are excited to announce the publication of River Voices: Perspectives on the Presumpscot published by North Country Press. The book includes a chapter by Dr. Rachel Bouvier, “The Economic Value of a Restored Fishery on the Presumpscot River.” In describing the chapter Dr. Bouvier said, ” I discuss the economic value of restoring a …
1. Economic valuation of green and blue nature in cities: A meta-analysis Marija Bockarjovaa, Wouter J.W. Botzena, Mark J. Koetse Ecological Economics 169 (2020) Environmental economists have long maintained that nature and the ecological services that nature provides are vastly undervalued. This undervaluation of “natural capital” relative to other types of capital is one of …
In our field, the term “resiliency” is typically thought of as resiliency to climate change . However, economic resiliency can also be resiliency to any sort of disaster – economic, human- caused, or “natural”. Economic resiliency or an economic resiliency study (sometimes called a vulnerability assessment) involves taking a good hard look at your community …
Black Lives Matter When talking about sustainability we often use the metaphor of a three legged stool. We take great pains to explain how each leg – economic, social, and environmental – is essential to ensure that the stool will hold the person who sits on it. The person in this metaphor is us, human …
Recycling changed dramatically in 2018, when China went from accepting 45% of the world’s plastic waste to almost none. As a result, by 2030, up to 111 million metric tons of plastic could be displaced.[1] All that extra plastic, as well as the paper and other materials China is refusing, has significant and far-reaching effects. …
1. Can proximity to urban green spaces be considered a luxury? Classifying a non-tradable good with the use of hedonic pricing method Edyta Łaszkiewicz⁎, Piotr Czembrowski, Jakub Kronenberg Ecological Economics 161 (2019) 237–247 In this article, the authors examine apartment rents in Lodz, Poland, to see whether proximity to “green space” (defined as parks, forests, …
Every so often, I get requests to do an economic impact analysis of a local tourism event, or a new business that’s recently opened in the area. The person that is asking usually knows enough about an economic analysis to know that they need one (or think they do), but not always enough to make …
Measuring Willingness to Pay for Environmental Attributes in Seafood Hilger, J., Hallstein, E., Stevens, A.W. et al. Environ Resource Econ (2019) 73: 307. We found this article very interesting because of our recent work with CEI on growing farmed scallop in Maine. Most research suggests that consumers are willing to pay for environmental attributes (like …