Economic land use, ecosystem services and microfounded species dynamics

Thomas Eichner and Rüdiger Pethig

Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge from Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht

Abstract: In an integrated economy-ecosystem model humans choose their land use and leave the residual land as habitat for three species forming a food chain. The size of habitat determines the diversity and abundance of species. That biodiversity generates, in turn, a flow of ecosystem services with public-good characteristics for human consumption. The ecosystem submodel yields (rather than assumes!) population growth functions with each species' growth depending on the size of habitat. First the relationship between habitat and species growth (sustenance, decline and extinction) is explored. The laissez-faire economy is shown to result in an underprovision of habitat making the case for land use restrictions for nature protection. The optimal land use policy is characterized with full regard of ecosystem dynamics. Finally, labor-augmenting technical change is introduced to generate ever increasing pressure towards further habitat reductions. In the laissez-faire economy the habitat is consequently squeezed to zero in the long-run so that all species are doomed. Social optimality demands, however, to refrain from using all land for economic purposes despite ever growing labor productivity.

Keywords: land use; ecosystem dynamics; biodiversity; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q24 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wiwi.uni-siegen.de/vwl/repec/sie/papers/116-04.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic land use, ecosystem services and microfounded species dynamics (2006)
Working Paper: Economic Land Use, Ecosystem Services and Microfounded Species Dynamics (2004)
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:sie:siegen:116-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge from Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael Gail ().