Between Ostrom and Nordhaus: The research landscape of sustainability economics

Moritz Drupp, Stefan Baumgärtner, Moritz Meyer, Martin Quaas and Henrik von Wehrden

Ecological Economics, 2020, vol. 172, issue C

Abstract: We survey the emerging research area of sustainability economics through a quantitative full-text analysis of peer-reviewed journal publications from 1987 to 2013. To identify relevant contributions, we draw on existing definitions of sustainability economics for a keyword-based identification strategy: a combined focus on (a) the human-nature relationship, (b) the long-term uncertain future, (c) normative orientation towards sustainability, and (d) economic analysis. Our analysis of a random subsample of 343 relevant papers reveals that (i) sustainability economics is a rapidly developing research area; (ii) while theoretical contributions shaped the area in earlier years, applied work now constitutes the largest share of contributions; (iii) the research landscape can be clustered into eleven research clusters. These range from participatory governance of social-ecological systems associated with the work of Elinor Ostrom to questions of intertemporal allocation and distribution applied to climate economics associated with the work of William Nordhaus; (iv) the research area is broad in scope and heterogeneous, and there is relatively little interaction between important clusters; (v) relevant contributions are published in more than 100 journals. Ten journals publish half of all contributions, led by Ecological Economics, and 40% appear in non-economics journals, underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue.

Keywords: Sustainability; Economics; Human–nature relationship; Uncertainty; Future; Justice; Literature; Bibliographic analysis; Vocabulary (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 A14 B40 D63 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310493
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:172:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919310493

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106620

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().