What is an Ecological Economist?

Ecological economists are not members of the community of mainstream economists and their work has been routinely dismissed or ignored by mainstream economists. The primary objective of the ecological economists is to enlarge the framework of the neoclassical economic paradigm to include scientifically valid measures of the environmental costs of economic activities. Scholarship in this discipline is replete with carefully developed and well documented reasons why the mathematical theories used by mainstream economists should include these costs and numerous demonstrations of how this could be accomplished. But the fact that there has been virtually no dialogue between ecological economists and mainstream economists clearly indicates that the former is saying something that the latter simply does not wish to entertain or understand.

For example, Mark Sagoff argues that neoclassical market valuation is not capable of realistically assessing the environmental costs of economic activities. He points out that market value in mainstream economics is based on a vague something that is not subject to direct observation or measurement—individual utility or individual happiness and well-being. He then argues that even if individuals could be enticed into placing a marginal money valuation on an environmental “amenity,” they might be happier if they paid this amount in exchange for the opportunity to destroy the amenity. To lend weight to this argument, Sagoff cites the results of a study in Wyoming in which participants refused to recognize that the environment had any monetary value.

See the full comparison of neoclassical, environmental and ecological economics theory here