Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods
A National Accounts Perspective
Measuring and Accounting for Environmental Public Goods
A National Accounts Perspective
Provides strategies and approaches for integrating natural capital into environmental statistics.
While the importance of natural resources and the contributions of the environment to welfare are apparent, traditional national income and wealth accounting practices do not measure or value environmental public goods. This volume examines the conceptual and empirical basis for integrating natural capital—forests, oceans, and air—into the economic and environmental statistics that inform public policy. It offers innovative approaches to valuing nonmarket environmental goods and services, including strategies for capturing heterogeneity in measurement across types of capital, geography, and individuals.
The chapters focus on measuring productivity with adjustments for pollution damage, developing a microdata infrastructure to advance our understanding of the distribution of environmental amenities and hazards, and estimating long-run sustainable development indicators. Case studies consider coastal assets, forests, and marine ecosystems, and develop strategies for implementing specific environmental-economic accounts such as environmental activity accounts and natural capital accounts for forests and the marine economy. As national income accounting standards are updated to incorporate expanded guidance on issues related to natural capital, this timely book will help inform decisions on the measurement and treatment of climate, air, water, and other public goods.
312 pages | 26 halftones, 25 line drawings, 33 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2025
National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth
Economics and Business: Economics--Agriculture and Natural Resources
Table of Contents
Introduction
Nicholas Muller, Eli Fenichel, and Mary Bohman
1. Incorporating Air and Water Pollution into the National Income and Product Accounts
Maureen L. Cropper and Yongjoon Park
2. Measuring for the Future, Not the Past
Matthew Agarwala, Diane Coyle, Cristina Peñasco, and Dimitri Zenghelis
Comment: Nicholas Muller
3. Tracing Sustainability in the Long Run: Genuine Savings Estimates 1850–2018
Eoin McLaughlin, Cristián Ducoing, and Les Oxley
Comment: Stefanie Onder
4. Microdata and the Valuation of Natural Capital
Jonathan Colmer and John Voorheis
Comment: Corbett Grainger
5. The Value and Configuration of Coastal Natural Capital
Ethan T. Addicott
Comment: Justin C. Contat
6. Accounting for Environmental Activity: Measuring Public Environmental Expenditures and the Environmental Goods and Services Sector in the United States
Dennis Fixler, Julie L. Hass, Tina Highfill, Kelly Wentland, and Scott Wentland
Comment: David A. Evans
7. Natural Capital Accounting on Forested Lands in the United States: An Application to the Colorado River Basin
Travis Warziniack, Ken Bagstad, Michael Knowles, Christopher Mihiar, Arpita Nehra, Charles Rhodes, Leslie Sanchez, Christopher Sichko, and Charles B. Sims
Comment: Andie Creel
8. Natural Capital Considerations for an Extension of the US Marine Economy Satellite Account
Jeffrey Wielgus, Monica Grasso, Charles Colgan, Jennifer Zhuang, Sarah Siegel, Joseph Conran and Tadesse Wodajo
Comment: Andrew M. Scheld
Author Index
Subject Index