Clive L Spash
Biographic Data
| ID | 709735 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Clive L Spash |
| GIVEN NAMES | Clive L |
| FAMILY NAME | Spash |
| SIGNATURE | SPASH C L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vienna University of Economics and Business |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 145 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
What's wrong with degrowth
Why is degrowth being sidelined by some of its highest profile populist writers? Is the term degrowth too negative and neo-Malthusian? Should degrowth be treated as a quantitative reduction in economic growth or GDP? Is degrowth drifting from its origins? What happened to degrowth's foundational concerns for limits to growth and stopping the imperialist spread of growth as development? Are pragmatic political alliances now creating fundamental co…
The road to Social Ecological Economics: An interview with Clive Spash, part 1
Exploring economic dimensions of social ecological crises: A reply to special issue papers
In this paper I consider various shifts in my research and understanding stimulated by seeking how to combat social ecological crises connected to modern economies. The discussion and critical reflections are structured around five papers that were submitted to Environmental Values in an open call to address my work. A common aspect is the move away from neoclassical environmental economics, and its reductionist monetary valuation, to a more real…
Foundations of social ecological economics: The fight for revolutionary change in economic thought
This book explores radical dissent from orthodox mainstream economics, and sets out a theoretically grounded vision for the emerging paradigm of social ecological economics. In short, orthodox dissent has entailed arguments for maintaining hi-tech growth economies and redistributing the surplus regardless of core counterarguments from Marxists, feminists, institutionalists, Post Keynesians and ecological economists. Building on the radical and ph…
Herman Daly: Some Personal Reflections
A journey into the foundations and transformative implications of social ecological economics: An interview with Clive Spash
Petit : Thank you for taking the time to talk about your vision of social ecological economics. Let us start
Three Decades of Environmental Values: Some Personal Reflections
The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the…
Reconceptualising freedom in the 21st century: Neoliberalism vs. degrowth
The hegemonic role of neoliberal ideas in today’s political-economic thought and practice has shaped the common way of thinking about freedom in Western society and more generally in the international community. This involves a negative, individualistic and market-centred interpretation of the concept. In contrast, visions of a degrowth society offer a radical alternative based on Cornelius Castoriadis’ notion of individual and social autonomy. W…
From planetary to societal boundaries: An argument for collectively defined self-limitation
The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds. We start by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. We then focus on capital…
Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?
Despite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60% higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses—covering issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling, energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries—…
Conceptualising Nature: From Dasgupta to Degrowth
The problematic conceptualisation of Nature has led confusion and failure to relate to reality. Some merge Nature into society creating a hybrid concept that denies the existence of anything but that which is human controlled or influenced, a position popular amongst Promethians of the Anthropocene. Strong social constructionism also dissolves Nature into the human as evident in some stands of the degrowth movement. Mainstream economists and thos…
The Contested Conceptualisation of Pollution in Economics: Market Failure or Cost Shifting Success
Aujourd’hui, l’économie de l’environnement est la réponse de la théorie économique néoclassique à la crise écologique. Pourtant, à une époque, ses principaux contributeurs la considéraient comme une avancée révolutionnaire qui allait changer la conduite et le contenu de l’économie en tant que discipline. La compréhension et la lutte contre la pollution de l’environnement étaient au cœur de ce changement de paradigme potentiel. En retraçant l’hist…
A Reply to Levrel and Martinet
The Dasgupta Review deconstructed: An exposé of biodiversity economics
The Dasgupta Review is the latest attempt at justifying financialisation of Nature, but also much more. It represents a high point in applying concepts of capital and wealth accumulation comprehensively to all aspects of human and non-human existence. Unravelling the flaws in the arguments, contradictions and underlying motives requires both understand of and cutting through the specialist language, neoclassical economic models, mathematics and r…
The Revolution will not be Corporatised
The plain speaking of the new environmental movements places emphasis on an imminent ecological crisis, but the 'new' environmentalists appear to lack insight into what specific action is required, to what they stand in opposition and more generally the political and economic context within which they (as social movements) are operating. The fact is that political and economic elites around the world have long been taking 'environmental action', …
Days of Decision
Crises provide moments for reflection, rethinking, seeing the potential for restructuring, and making decisions to change everyday practices. Coronavirus has exposed the structure of the dominant economic system and its inequities. The response to the social crisis is a call for relating to other humans regardless of colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation, age or religion. The response to the ecological crisis is a call for recognition of plur…
A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential of ecological economics
The economy’ as if people mattered: Revisiting critiques of economic growth in a time of crisis
Coronavirus (COVID-19) policy shut down the world economy with a range of government actions unprecedented outside of wartime. In this paper, economic systems dominated by a capital accumulating growth imperative are shown to have had their structural weaknesses exposed, revealing numerous problems including unstable supply chains, unjust social provisioning of essentials, profiteering, precarious employment, inequities and pollution. Such phenom…
Apologists for growth: Passive revolutionaries in a passive revolution
Popular authors and international organizations recommend transformation to "new economy". However, this is misleadingly interpreted as radical orrevolutionary. Two problematic positions are revealed: being pro-growth while seeking to change the current form of capitalism (e.g. Ha-Joon Chang), and being anti-growth on environmental grounds but promoting growth for poverty alleviation and due to agnosticism about growth (e.g. Tim Jacksonand Kate R…
SEE Beyond Substantive Economics: Avoiding False Dichotomies
Policies to reduce CO2 emissions: Fallacies and evidence from the United States and California
Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society
Social Ecological Transformation and the Individual
Western society and its conceptualisation of modern democracy has placed a heavy emphasis on autonomy of the individual. Yet curtailing autonomy is a standard necessity for any collective to operate. There is then an inevitable tension between the idea that individuals have freedom to do as they please and the recognition that, as social animals, humans create institutions that impose constraints on such freedom in order to achieve communal goals…
This Changes Nothing: The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality
At the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Paris, France, 30 November to 11 December 2015, an Agreement was reached by the international community including 195 countries. The Agreement has been hailed, by participants and the media, as a major turning point for policy in the struggle to address human-induced climate change. The following is a short critical commentary…
Bulldozing biodiversity: The economics of offsets and trading-in Nature
The Brave New World of Carbon Trading
Human-induced climate change has become a prominent political issue, at both national and international levels, leading to the search for regulatory ‘solutions’. Emissions trading has risen in popularity to become the most broadly favoured government strategy. Carbon permits have then quickly been developed as a serious financial instrument in markets turning over billions of dollars a year. In this article, I show how the reality of permit marke…
Social Ecological Economics: Understanding the Past to See the Future
The attempt to provide insight into the interactions between the economy and the environment has been an on-going struggle for many decades. The rise of Ecological Economics can be seen as a positive step towards integrating social and natural science understanding by a movement that aims to go beyond the confines of mainstream economics towards a progressive political economy of the environment. However, this vision has not been shared by all th…
Apologists for growth: Passive revolutionaries in a passive revolution
Popular authors and international organizations recommend transformation to "new economy". However, this is misleadingly interpreted as radical orrevolutionary. Two problematic positions are revealed: being pro-growth while seeking to change the current form of capitalism (e.g. Ha-Joon Chang), and being anti-growth on environmental grounds but promoting growth for poverty alleviation and due to agnosticism about growth (e.g. Tim Jacksonand Kate R…
Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment
Journal Article Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment. Get access Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment. By Hanley (Nick) and SPASH (CLIVE L.). (Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1993. Pp. x + 278. £39-95 hardback. ISBN 1 85278 455 5.) Ross Cullen Ross Cullen Lincoln University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 104, Issue 427, 1 November 1994, Pages 1488–1490, h…
The economy’ as if people mattered: Revisiting critiques of economic growth in a time of crisis
Coronavirus (COVID-19) policy shut down the world economy with a range of government actions unprecedented outside of wartime. In this paper, economic systems dominated by a capital accumulating growth imperative are shown to have had their structural weaknesses exposed, revealing numerous problems including unstable supply chains, unjust social provisioning of essentials, profiteering, precarious employment, inequities and pollution. Such phenom…
This Changes Nothing: The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality
At the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Paris, France, 30 November to 11 December 2015, an Agreement was reached by the international community including 195 countries. The Agreement has been hailed, by participants and the media, as a major turning point for policy in the struggle to address human-induced climate change. The following is a short critical commentary…
Reconceptualising freedom in the 21st century: Neoliberalism vs. degrowth
The hegemonic role of neoliberal ideas in today’s political-economic thought and practice has shaped the common way of thinking about freedom in Western society and more generally in the international community. This involves a negative, individualistic and market-centred interpretation of the concept. In contrast, visions of a degrowth society offer a radical alternative based on Cornelius Castoriadis’ notion of individual and social autonomy. W…
The Dasgupta Review deconstructed: An exposé of biodiversity economics
The Dasgupta Review is the latest attempt at justifying financialisation of Nature, but also much more. It represents a high point in applying concepts of capital and wealth accumulation comprehensively to all aspects of human and non-human existence. Unravelling the flaws in the arguments, contradictions and underlying motives requires both understand of and cutting through the specialist language, neoclassical economic models, mathematics and r…
Informing and forming preferences in environmental valuation: Coral reef biodiversity
Policies to reduce CO2 emissions: Fallacies and evidence from the United States and California
The Future Post-Growth Society
Discontent with the economic system amongst those living in the richest nations has not been as prevalent since the early 1970s. The 2008 financial crash has led to many books that are critical of both the economy and economists. A common retort to critiques is, ‘what is your alternative then?’, as if there were none. There are many alternatives and an increasingly active research agenda looking at what a society would be like without a growth im…
Is WTP an attitudinal measure? Empirical analysis of the psychological explanation for contingent values
Social psychology and economics in environmental research
Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity
Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity. Get access Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity. By (Edward B.) BArbier, BURGESS JOANNE C.) and Folke (Carl). (London: Earthscan Publications, 1994. Pp. xvi + 267 £14.95 paperback. ISBN 1 85383 181 6.)The Economic Value of Biodiversity. By Pearce (David) and Moran (Dominic). (London: Earthscan Publications, 1994. Pp. viii+ 172 £32.50 hardback, £12.95 paperback. ISBN 1 853…
Economics, Ethics, and Long-Term Environmental Damages
A journey into the foundations and transformative implications of social ecological economics: An interview with Clive Spash
Petit : Thank you for taking the time to talk about your vision of social ecological economics. Let us start
The economy of the Earth revisited
The political economy of nature ∗
Economic systems and modes of analysis confront several reinforcing boundaries when considering the environment. These include physical limits to growth, the laws of thermodynamics, social limits to growth, the extent to which Nature can be regarded as a commodity, environmental ethics and philosophical divergences from utilitarianism. The consideration of environmental pollution emphasizes how individual choice and social good can be separated; …
Trying to Find the Right Approach to Greenhouse Economics: Some Reflections upon the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis
The approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions suggested by simple neoclassical economic models has appeared in prominent mainstream journals. This entails weighing up the costs of control compared to the benefits of avoiding damages due to global climate change. This paper presents a critique of extending the microeconomic project based methodology to a complex global problem; raising issues of uncertainty and ignorance. An alternative to …
Economics, Ethics, and Long-Term Environmental Damages
Double CO2 and beyond: Benefits, costs and compensation
Trying to Find the Right Approach to Greenhouse Economics: Some Reflections upon the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis
The approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions suggested by simple neoclassical economic models has appeared in prominent mainstream journals. This entails weighing up the costs of control compared to the benefits of avoiding damages due to global climate change. This paper presents a critique of extending the microeconomic project based methodology to a complex global problem; raising issues of uncertainty and ignorance. An alternative to …
Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment
Journal Article Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment. Get access Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment. By Hanley (Nick) and SPASH (CLIVE L.). (Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1993. Pp. x + 278. £39-95 hardback. ISBN 1 85278 455 5.) Ross Cullen Ross Cullen Lincoln University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 104, Issue 427, 1 November 1994, Pages 1488–1490, h…
Environmental economics
Environmental Economics: Policies for Environmental Management and Sustainable Development by Clem Tisdell. Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1993. Pp. xii+259; index. £39.95 (hardback). ISBN 1 85278 639 6 The Earthscan Reader in Environmental Economics edited by Anil Markandya and Julie Richardson. London: Earthscan Publications Limited, 1992. Pp. 469. £19.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 85383 106 9
Preferences, information and biodiversity preservation
The political economy of nature ∗
Economic systems and modes of analysis confront several reinforcing boundaries when considering the environment. These include physical limits to growth, the laws of thermodynamics, social limits to growth, the extent to which Nature can be regarded as a commodity, environmental ethics and philosophical divergences from utilitarianism. The consideration of environmental pollution emphasizes how individual choice and social good can be separated; …
Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity
Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity. Get access Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity. By (Edward B.) BArbier, BURGESS JOANNE C.) and Folke (Carl). (London: Earthscan Publications, 1994. Pp. xvi + 267 £14.95 paperback. ISBN 1 85383 181 6.)The Economic Value of Biodiversity. By Pearce (David) and Moran (Dominic). (London: Earthscan Publications, 1994. Pp. viii+ 172 £32.50 hardback, £12.95 paperback. ISBN 1 853…
Human-induced climate change: The limits of models
Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Resource Systems edited by Kenneth D. Frederick and Norman J. Rosenberg. Dodrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994. Pp.219. £76 (hardback). ISBN 0 7923 3211 3 Managing the Global Commons: The Economics of Climate Change by William D. Nordhaus. London: The MIT Press, 1994. Pp.ii + 213; index. £27.50 (hardback). ISBN 0 262 14055 1 The Politics of Global Atmospheric Change by Ian H. Rowlands. Manch…
Ecosystems, contingent valuation and ethics: The case of wetland re-creation
Informing and forming preferences in environmental valuation: Coral reef biodiversity
Social psychology and economics in environmental research
Transferring environmental value estimates: Issues and alternatives
The economics of climate change impacts à la Stern: Novel and nuanced or rhetorically restricted
Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV): Issues in combining economic and political processes to value environmental change
Deliberative Monetary Valuation and the Evidence for a New Value Theory
Economists concerned with validity are combining stated-preference methods with participatory deliberation to address on-going criticism. Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) uses formal methods of deliberation to express values for environmental change in monetary terms. However, the results have begun to define different realms of value, reflecting pluralism in public concern over environmental change. Reviewing empirical DMV studies evidences…
How Much is that Ecosystem in the Window? The One with the Bio-diverse Trail
Ecosystems are increasingly characterised as goods and services to allow their valuation in monetary terms. This follows an orthodox economic approach to environmental values, but is also being undertaken by ecologists and conservation biologists. There then appears a lack of clarity and debate as to the model of human behaviour, specific values and decision process being adopted. Arguments for ecosystems service valuation are critically appraise…
Motives behind willingness to pay for improving biodiversity in a water ecosystem: Economics, ethics and social psychology
The Brave New World of Carbon Trading
Human-induced climate change has become a prominent political issue, at both national and international levels, leading to the search for regulatory ‘solutions’. Emissions trading has risen in popularity to become the most broadly favoured government strategy. Carbon permits have then quickly been developed as a serious financial instrument in markets turning over billions of dollars a year. In this article, I show how the reality of permit marke…
The economy of the Earth revisited
Is WTP an attitudinal measure? Empirical analysis of the psychological explanation for contingent values
Social Ecological Economics: Understanding the Past to See the Future
The attempt to provide insight into the interactions between the economy and the environment has been an on-going struggle for many decades. The rise of Ecological Economics can be seen as a positive step towards integrating social and natural science understanding by a movement that aims to go beyond the confines of mainstream economics towards a progressive political economy of the environment. However, this vision has not been shared by all th…
New foundations for ecological economics
Critical issues in environmental taxation: International Comparative Perspectives
Influencing the perception of what and who is important in ecological economics
Economics (38 works) · Political science (32 works) · Law (24 works) · Ecology (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Economic and Environmental Valuation (18 works) · Politics (18 works) · Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy (17 works) · Environmental ethics (15 works) · Climate Change Policy and Economics (13 works)