For the next class, minimum recommended reading would be the introductory and end-of-chapter summary/conclusions paragraphs of chapters 13 to 19 of Ecological Economics - Principles and Applications by Herman Daly and Josh Farley (Island Press) (2003 edition).
For those with more time, and
(1) any special interest in macroeconomic questions, try to read the whole of chapters 13 to 16 and use a summary approach to chapters 17 to 19 (you can skip all but the summary of chapter 15 if that strikes you as a bit of a digression from straight macroeconomic questions, although the issue of "distribution" is becoming a topic of great current interest, as evidenced by the remarkable success of Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty)
OR
(2) any special interest in questions of international trade, try to read the whole of chapters 17 to 19 (and you can then use a summary approach to chapters 13 to 16).
If you have the time to read all 7 of the chapters from chapter 13 to chapter 19 , so much the better, but I realize that may not be practical for many and I won't assume that anyone has read it all.
If by any chance you have easy access the book in its second edition (blue rather than green cover), the chapters numbers are a bit different, but not so different that you should necessarily choose to read what I have attached instead of the second edition material. If you do have the second edition and are challenged by the mapping of the new chapters to the old, e-mail me at michael_barkusky@telus.net.
I seem to be falling a bit behind again - My excuses (for what they are worth) are presenting to the "Cool North Shore" group (which happened tonight - both Jordan and I were asked to join a panel with Katja Macura of LoCo) and the T1 tax filing deadline (April 30th moved on to May 5th)
This is a classic article from the Harvard Business Review of 1995 by Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde - perhaps a bit too optimistic (in the vein of "Roadmap for Natural Capitalism" by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins from the first reading package) but the important point is that immediate adverse upward movement of a cost curve, may be a simple comparative-static effect that can be offset (partially, wholly or more-than-wholly) by longer-term dynamic effects. Beneficial dynamic effects over time are of course more likely, the smarter is the regulatory pressure. Implication: rather than "more regulation", we typically need "very smart regulation, smarter than existed before" even when such regulation is stricter. Michael Raab is of the view that German industry has done pretty well in recent years from effects strikingly consistent with the "Porter Hypothesis".
See you next Tuesday.
- Michael
Class Five Readings:
Hi folks:
A little bit earlier in the week, this time !
I have posted ten pages from the book "Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus. If you choose to read this, you should perhaps start from the words "Consider this ...." in the middle of page 135.
I have also attached some notes I wrote today on the subject of the interrelationship between Industrial Ecology, Biomimicry and Ecological Economics. This document is just short of two pages.
Finally, if you have a bit more time, consider browsing the site http://www.biomimicry.net (You can google "biomimicry 3.8" ) .
Hi folks:
Later than I had hoped, yet again, sorry !
Here is some material to review, if you have time, before the class coming up next Tuesday (April 8th)
First, I have attached some of the slides from last class. If you do nothing else, do take another look at slide 2.
Second (and please don't be intimidated, if you had no prior formal exposure to economics and/or did not do any post-secondary math) I have attached a PDF file that provides 6 not-entirely-consecutive chapters from a book entitled "Intermediate Microeconomics - A Modern Approach" by Hal Varian (this is from the 8th edition of that book).
This is, admittedly, used predominantly as a second-year course textbook, although I happen to know that it has been used for a first undergraduate course in microeconomics at Balliol College, Oxford. It follows a pretty traditional approach, but many of the awkward (and unrealistic) assumptions underlying these standard models are, by and large, disclosed, even if they are not critiqued. Varian also offers good coverage of the most useful oligopoly models (useful is of course a relative term), externalities, public goods, the Coase Theorem, and Pigouvian Taxes - all topics we'd like to cover, at least very briefly.
I can see that it probably won't be easy to follow anything like all the subtleties of the arguments without reading most of the preceding 23 chapters, but we don't have time for that !
Giving you this material now, though, serves a number of purposes:
It could be a good refresher for those of you who have done one or two (or more) semesters of post-secondary undergraduate economics
It can serve as a solid bank of reference material over the next 5 classes, to the extent that it is necessary to have a reference source on these issues
It probably encompasses close to 75% of all the neoclassical microeconomics one needs to know to be a very confident critic of mainstream economic theory and a persuasive advocate of the ecological economics approach
It closes off, pretty much, most of what is (arguably) helpful for us to have as a toolbox of concepts drawn from mainstream theory, as we dive into more innovative and exciting (and much more ecologically-focused) material.
If you don't have time to read anything like this much before Tuesday, here are some suggested time-saving strategies
Just read the summaries (each chapter has one, and they are generally very short)
Just review the diagrams and the captions to them
Read the summaries and review the diagrams.
It may also be worth looking through this material after Tuesday, if you don't manage to do it before.
Skip anything that doesn't make sense, unless you are truly intrigued. I know you are all busy people. Some concepts may in fact not make sense to anyone other than committed neoclassical microeconomic theorists anyway !
By the way, if you are, in fact, trying to read (or even just skim) the text beyond the summaries and the diagrams, note that the monopolistic competition model is discussed in chapter 25, entitled "Monopoly Behaviour" - in section 25.7. Keep a look out for it - as there is no whole chapter on this market structure in Varian's book.
Note also that chapter 35 (on Information Technology) is a bit of an outlier from the main drift of the other chapters, sandwiched somewhat awkwardly between chapter 34 (on Externalities) and chapter 36 (on Public Goods).
Feel very free to skip this chapter entirely if this isn't of great interest to you.
It is, however, a chapter with a focus on applications to industries and firms where innovation is constant, and where there is substantial and sometimes bewildering amounts of real product differentiation, as well as superficial brand differentiation. It is certainly a world quite removed from standard textbook perfect competition in markets for basic, elastically-supplied commodities, a world that would seem to break the neoclassical mould. It is probably rather dated now (does anyone still use PowerPC chips or run IBM's AIX operating system, for example ?) but it does show a certain resilience in mainstream theory as the "high priests" of standard microeconomics set out to explain new phenomena observed in real-world markets. Varian who is apparently now the chief economist at Google, actually co-authored a whole book, called "Information Rules" on the economics of high-tech, with Carl Shapiro (then at UC Berkeley).
Happy Reading for those who have the time !
I do also have a suggestion for anyone who wants to get beyond the mainstream material as soon as possible: If you don't already own it (and certainly if you haven't read it) get hold of the book "Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus, if necessary from the Vancouver Public Library. She has done a TED talk and a video and transcript is available at http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs/transcript
Best Regards, Michael Barkusky
Class Three Readings:
Here is an assortment of reading for the class coming up on Wednesday November 12th.
Some of the extracts from Adam Smith (the Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776) are quite well-known, but his critique of the dangers of allowing "men of industry" to have too much influence on public policy, may strike one as surprising, given the usual role into which Smith is pressed, as the champion of "free enterprise". The point here, is that Smith believed that free enterprise (with vigorous competition) was a good system, not that entrepreneurs were wiser or better citizens than non-entrepreneurs. He also clearly recognized that the temptation for commercial competitors to try to influence legislation in their own favour was very great, and that their ability to do so might be considerable. At the same time, it was unlikely that such influence would serve the "public interest" (hard as that is to define). In fact, he argues vigorously that they will almost certainly want to attenuate competition amongst themselves, and entrench any otherwise temporary advantages they would otherwise be enjoying, and that that would almost certainly be contrary to the public interest.
The passage from Ricardo (famous as the originator of the Theory of Comparative Advantage, so dear to advocates of global free trade) is interesting in that he expresses skepticism about the ability of more capital to substitute for increasingly scarce fertile land, as more fertile land is brought into production, and less unused or underutilized arable land remained. The implication is that further population growth can only diminish collective well-being, if a critical factor, land (not easily substituted for ) is in increasingly inelastic supply under such circumstances. This is suggestive of a high degree of continuity between classical and ecological economics, implying that the "substitution-optimism" of neoclassical economics, rather than the substitution pessimism of ecological economics, is the deviation from longstanding intellectual tradition. Bear in mind that Ricardo was writing in 1817, just after the Napoleonic Wars, but reasonably early in the progress of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
The extracts from Mill (1848) are quite lengthy, and if pressed for time, I would suggest concentrating on IV 6.2, IV 6.5, IV 6.8 and IV 6.9. Recalling the difficult topic of "Ends and Means" (that at least one class participant wanted us to think about more) it is interesting to read Mill questioning the merit of always trying to "get on" (materially) and so clearly recognizing the ecological and social costs of relentless economic growth.
Carbon Crash - Solar Dawn is a very optimistic article. I'd be interest to hear what those of you who have time to read it, think about it's analysis and predictions.
Aboriginal Power is a very short news piece - not much detail, but somewhat intriguing.
The last attachment, of course, is the glossary from Ecological Economics - Principles and Applications, by Herman Daly & Josh Farley.
Best Regards, Michael Barkusky
(Documents can be downloaded or previewed from this widget.
Directions specific to each reading can be seen in the comments by clicking on +1 by each)
Class Two Readings:
Hi folks: We have a very ambitious agenda for the next two classes (March 11th and March 25th).
It has proved to be quite difficult to find compact readings for the material to be covered, especially those elements drawn from mainstream microeconomics literature, and I was very reluctant to give you multiple references that would be difficult to get through, and might involve unnecessary duplication of reading effort. (Documents can be downloaded or previewed from this widget. Directions specific to each reading can be seen in the comments by clicking on +1 by each)
If this reaches you too late to do very much reading at all before Tuesday, please don't get too mad at me. All is not lost. Do what you can. There will still be real value in reading all or even some of this material this material after this Tuesday coming, and before Tuesday March 25th or even (as a last resort) after March 25th. Best Regards Michael Barkusky
Pre-Reading Package:
This package contains 3 articles:
A Road Map for Natural Capitalism. (Lovins, Lovins and Hawken, Harvard Business Review, 1999)
What Is the Limiting Factor? (Daly, no date)
Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environ
Course Assigned Readings added in Reverse Chronological Order:
Class Seven Readings:
Daly+Farley-Ecological_Economics-PartIV_only.pdf
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- 664 KB
Daly+Farley-Ecological_Economics-PartV_only.pdf
- Details
- Download
- 406 KB
Hi folks:For the next class, minimum recommended reading would be the introductory and end-of-chapter summary/conclusions paragraphs of chapters 13 to 19 of Ecological Economics - Principles and Applications by Herman Daly and Josh Farley (Island Press) (2003 edition).
For those with more time, and
(1) any special interest in macroeconomic questions, try to read the whole of chapters 13 to 16 and use a summary approach to chapters 17 to 19 (you can skip all but the summary of chapter 15 if that strikes you as a bit of a digression from straight macroeconomic questions, although the issue of "distribution" is becoming a topic of great current interest, as evidenced by the remarkable success of Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty)
OR
(2) any special interest in questions of international trade, try to read the whole of chapters 17 to 19 (and you can then use a summary approach to chapters 13 to 16).
If you have the time to read all 7 of the chapters from chapter 13 to chapter 19 , so much the better, but I realize that may not be practical for many and I won't assume that anyone has read it all.
If by any chance you have easy access the book in its second edition (blue rather than green cover), the chapters numbers are a bit different, but not so different that you should necessarily choose to read what I have attached instead of the second edition material. If you do have the second edition and are challenged by the mapping of the new chapters to the old, e-mail me at michael_barkusky@telus.net.
Class Six Readings:
Hi folks:
I seem to be falling a bit behind again - My excuses (for what they are worth) are presenting to the "Cool North Shore" group (which happened tonight - both Jordan and I were asked to join a panel with Katja Macura of LoCo) and the T1 tax filing deadline (April 30th moved on to May 5th)
This is a classic article from the Harvard Business Review of 1995 by Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde - perhaps a bit too optimistic (in the vein of "Roadmap for Natural Capitalism" by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins from the first reading package) but the important point is that immediate adverse upward movement of a cost curve, may be a simple comparative-static effect that can be offset (partially, wholly or more-than-wholly) by longer-term dynamic effects. Beneficial dynamic effects over time are of course more likely, the smarter is the regulatory pressure. Implication: rather than "more regulation", we typically need "very smart regulation, smarter than existed before" even when such regulation is stricter. Michael Raab is of the view that German industry has done pretty well in recent years from effects strikingly consistent with the "Porter Hypothesis".
See you next Tuesday.
- Michael
Class Five Readings:
Hi folks:
A little bit earlier in the week, this time !
I have posted ten pages from the book "Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus. If you choose to read this, you should perhaps start from the words "Consider this ...." in the middle of page 135.
I have also attached some notes I wrote today on the subject of the interrelationship between Industrial Ecology, Biomimicry and Ecological Economics. This document is just short of two pages.
Finally, if you have a bit more time, consider browsing the site http://www.biomimicry.net (You can google "biomimicry 3.8" ) .
See you next Tuesday.
- Michael
Biomimicry-p135-145.pdf
- Details
- Download
- 1 MB
Thoughts-on-the-Interrelationships-IE-Biomimicry-and-EE.docx
- Details
- Download
- 39 KB
http:ecological-economics.wikispaces//.c.Class Four Readings:
Hi folks:Later than I had hoped, yet again, sorry !
Here is some material to review, if you have time, before the class coming up next Tuesday (April 8th)
First, I have attached some of the slides from last class. If you do nothing else, do take another look at slide 2.
Second (and please don't be intimidated, if you had no prior formal exposure to economics and/or did not do any post-secondary math) I have attached a PDF file that provides 6 not-entirely-consecutive chapters from a book entitled "Intermediate Microeconomics - A Modern Approach" by Hal Varian (this is from the 8th edition of that book).
This is, admittedly, used predominantly as a second-year course textbook, although I happen to know that it has been used for a first undergraduate course in microeconomics at Balliol College, Oxford. It follows a pretty traditional approach, but many of the awkward (and unrealistic) assumptions underlying these standard models are, by and large, disclosed, even if they are not critiqued. Varian also offers good coverage of the most useful oligopoly models (useful is of course a relative term), externalities, public goods, the Coase Theorem, and Pigouvian Taxes - all topics we'd like to cover, at least very briefly.
I can see that it probably won't be easy to follow anything like all the subtleties of the arguments without reading most of the preceding 23 chapters, but we don't have time for that !
Giving you this material now, though, serves a number of purposes:
- It could be a good refresher for those of you who have done one or two (or more) semesters of post-secondary undergraduate economics
- It can serve as a solid bank of reference material over the next 5 classes, to the extent that it is necessary to have a reference source on these issues
- It probably encompasses close to 75% of all the neoclassical microeconomics one needs to know to be a very confident critic of mainstream economic theory and a persuasive advocate of the ecological economics approach
- It closes off, pretty much, most of what is (arguably) helpful for us to have as a toolbox of concepts drawn from mainstream theory, as we dive into more innovative and exciting (and much more ecologically-focused) material.
If you don't have time to read anything like this much before Tuesday, here are some suggested time-saving strategies- Just read the summaries (each chapter has one, and they are generally very short)
- Just review the diagrams and the captions to them
- Read the summaries and review the diagrams.
It may also be worth looking through this material after Tuesday, if you don't manage to do it before.
Skip anything that doesn't make sense, unless you are truly intrigued. I know you are all busy people. Some concepts may in fact not make sense to anyone other than committed neoclassical microeconomic theorists anyway !By the way, if you are, in fact, trying to read (or even just skim) the text beyond the summaries and the diagrams, note that the monopolistic competition model is discussed in chapter 25, entitled "Monopoly Behaviour" - in section 25.7. Keep a look out for it - as there is no whole chapter on this market structure in Varian's book.
Note also that chapter 35 (on Information Technology) is a bit of an outlier from the main drift of the other chapters, sandwiched somewhat awkwardly between chapter 34 (on Externalities) and chapter 36 (on Public Goods).
Feel very free to skip this chapter entirely if this isn't of great interest to you.
It is, however, a chapter with a focus on applications to industries and firms where innovation is constant, and where there is substantial and sometimes bewildering amounts of real product differentiation, as well as superficial brand differentiation. It is certainly a world quite removed from standard textbook perfect competition in markets for basic, elastically-supplied commodities, a world that would seem to break the neoclassical mould. It is probably rather dated now (does anyone still use PowerPC chips or run IBM's AIX operating system, for example ?) but it does show a certain resilience in mainstream theory as the "high priests" of standard microeconomics set out to explain new phenomena observed in real-world markets. Varian who is apparently now the chief economist at Google, actually co-authored a whole book, called "Information Rules" on the economics of high-tech, with Carl Shapiro (then at UC Berkeley).
Happy Reading for those who have the time !
I do also have a suggestion for anyone who wants to get beyond the mainstream material as soon as possible: If you don't already own it (and certainly if you haven't read it) get hold of the book "Biomimicry" by Janine Benyus, if necessary from the Vancouver Public Library. She has done a TED talk and a video and transcript is available at
http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs/transcript
Best Regards, Michael Barkusky
Class Three Readings:
Here is an assortment of reading for the class coming up on Wednesday November 12th.Some of the extracts from Adam Smith (the Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776) are quite well-known, but his critique of the dangers of allowing "men of industry" to have too much influence on public policy, may strike one as surprising, given the usual role into which Smith is pressed, as the champion of "free enterprise". The point here, is that Smith believed that free enterprise (with vigorous competition) was a good system, not that entrepreneurs were wiser or better citizens than non-entrepreneurs. He also clearly recognized that the temptation for commercial competitors to try to influence legislation in their own favour was very great, and that their ability to do so might be considerable. At the same time, it was unlikely that such influence would serve the "public interest" (hard as that is to define). In fact, he argues vigorously that they will almost certainly want to attenuate competition amongst themselves, and entrench any otherwise temporary advantages they would otherwise be enjoying, and that that would almost certainly be contrary to the public interest.
The passage from Ricardo (famous as the originator of the Theory of Comparative Advantage, so dear to advocates of global free trade) is interesting in that he expresses skepticism about the ability of more capital to substitute for increasingly scarce fertile land, as more fertile land is brought into production, and less unused or underutilized arable land remained. The implication is that further population growth can only diminish collective well-being, if a critical factor, land (not easily substituted for ) is in increasingly inelastic supply under such circumstances. This is suggestive of a high degree of continuity between classical and ecological economics, implying that the "substitution-optimism" of neoclassical economics, rather than the substitution pessimism of ecological economics, is the deviation from longstanding intellectual tradition. Bear in mind that Ricardo was writing in 1817, just after the Napoleonic Wars, but reasonably early in the progress of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
The extracts from Mill (1848) are quite lengthy, and if pressed for time, I would suggest concentrating on IV 6.2, IV 6.5, IV 6.8 and IV 6.9. Recalling the difficult topic of "Ends and Means" (that at least one class participant wanted us to think about more) it is interesting to read Mill questioning the merit of always trying to "get on" (materially) and so clearly recognizing the ecological and social costs of relentless economic growth.
Carbon Crash - Solar Dawn is a very optimistic article. I'd be interest to hear what those of you who have time to read it, think about it's analysis and predictions.
Aboriginal Power is a very short news piece - not much detail, but somewhat intriguing.
The last attachment, of course, is the glossary from Ecological Economics - Principles and Applications, by Herman Daly & Josh Farley.Best Regards, Michael Barkusky
(Documents can be downloaded or previewed from this widget.
Directions specific to each reading can be seen in the comments by clicking on +1 by each)
Class Two Readings:
Hi folks:
We have a very ambitious agenda for the next two classes (March 11th and March 25th).
It has proved to be quite difficult to find compact readings for the material to be covered, especially those elements drawn from mainstream microeconomics literature, and I was very reluctant to give you multiple references that would be difficult to get through, and might involve unnecessary duplication of reading effort.
(Documents can be downloaded or previewed from this widget. Directions specific to each reading can be seen in the comments by clicking on +1 by each)
If this reaches you too late to do very much reading at all before Tuesday, please don't get too mad at me. All is not lost. Do what you can. There will still be real value in reading all or even some of this material this material after this Tuesday coming, and before Tuesday March 25th or even (as a last resort) after March 25th.
Best Regards
Michael Barkusky
Pre-Reading Package:
This package contains 3 articles: