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For some of their applications, I think the answers are trivial and uninteresting. If someone has to incur costs to extract a resource through any sort of transformation, it just ceases to be nature.
The more interesting ones are things like recreational value tied to a lack of intentional transformation.
I agree the authors would benefit from formalizing their thoughts but they’d also benefit from being berated by Den for saying dumb things that don’t actually grapple with current economic thinking. I’m agnostic as to which would help them more but have a strong preference for the latter.
The more interesting ones are things like recreational value tied to a lack of intentional transformation.
I agree, that's an interesting one. It'd probably touch on the economics of the commons and public goods, though. Which inevitably brings in the gubment. Which is where these thinkers always head.
I don’t grant, absent a compelling argument, that creating an organization to initiate violence against peaceful people can be logically derived from an enjoyment of nature.
It brings us back to an internal critique of econ that we've both had, which is that economists stop too quickly at "therefore, gubment." The math doesn't save us if we decide to stop applying the math when God (aka benevolent social planner) appears.
That reminds me that I keep putting of writing a short primer on externalities.
Magical daddy government isn’t trivial to derive from there either.
McCloskey quote from the (summary) reading today:
Externalities are not simply technological—though without much reflection most economists firmly believe they are. Externalities are defined socially all the way down. If factory smoke became fashionable to breathe, it would stop being a negative externality and would become a positive one.”
...and:
The technical treatment of externalities does account for that, but it also blows up the standard implementation model for dealing with externalities.
sorting through the question of how to assign value to something that just exists, but also has to be transformed to be brought to market. (That's my read of it anyway).
Yes, ish. That was my hope in reading it, but they seem waaaay more aggressive and ideological about the unfairness and unequal distribution from the fact that someone develops/uses nature (for free) and brings its "value" to market without paying for it
(And they should pay us, the people, because all your nature are belong to us)
I believe people used to be thanked for going out into nature and bringing back useful shit.
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I think you're referring to existence value, or perhaps some unknowable option value from biodiversity or natural preservation. But I don't think that's what the book is debating. I think the book is sorting through the question of how to assign value to something that just exists, but also has to be transformed to be brought to market. (That's my read of it anyway).
In which case, you write down a model that has the thing that exists as an object, as well as the transformation process as an endogenous outcome. You write down the model of the agents' behavior, and derive equations that are plausibly defensible as value measures, and see how the natural objects enter in.
Of course, the exercise is purely descriptive. The model doesn't (and can't really) make any normative claims. However, looking at precise definitions of value within the model can help us think more carefully about what increases or decreases the model's version of value, which helps us to think morally about more universal values that come from outside the model.
Also, I think forcing the Natural Dividend authors to write down a model where value can only accrue to people, and the government is some function of human decision making, may be clarifying for them and perhaps limit some of their claims. (I don't really know, because I haven't read the book carefully, but @denlillaapan insists that they're off their rockers)