A Place to Stand For Environmental Law and Economic Analysis ?

In doing normative environmental economics economists usually use WTP figures for losses when WTA figures are correct. We puzzle over moral issues involved in using discount rates and worry about equity effect not normally considered in benefit cost analysis. We wonder if individuals who will never use an amenity should have their existence values counted and if so if then we should also count existence values for nonenvironmental goods. We even wonder if persons can suffer harm from environmental degradation or can gain from environmental improvement even if they never know about it. This essay attempts for provide a framework for thinking about these sorts of issues centered around the concept of economic standing. Ronald Coase (1988) pointed out that law and economics can involve two different sort of tasks: economists taking into account the institutional structure in economic analysis or economists using economic theory to consider what efficient law would be. He thought the former was the more neglected area. The tasks are, however, intertwined; economics and law inform each other. This is nowhere better illustrated than in environmental law and economics. Benefit cost analysis of environmental problems