Talking a Lot, Yet Little to Say
Economics Imperialism in the Economics of Climate Change
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19233286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christiane Heisse (0000-0003-4497-0263, University of Bayreuth, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 315-332 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of Radical Political Economics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0486-6134 • E-ISSN: 1552-8502 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/04866134251415573 |
| OpenAlex | W7154105306 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 47 |
Mainstream economics is ill equipped to deal with systemic issues such as the climate crisis. Yet there is no shortage of approaches that extend neoclassical principles to nature-economy relations, and they hold considerable currency in policy discourses. This article interrogates neoclassical thought on climate change from the perspective of economics imperialism, the expansion of economic analysis onto new subject matter at the expense of other approaches. Drawing on the work of William Nordhaus and Nicholas Stern, I argue that climate change economics has been underpinned by economics imperialism in its second “market imperfection” and third “suspension” phases. Economics imperialism has thus contributed to excluding considerations of power, race, class, gender, and other systemic inequalities from the field, and underpins solutions that delay radical climate action. JEL Classification: B41, B50, Q50, Q54
Applied economics · Climate change · Currency · Economic shortage · Heterodox economics · Mainstream economics · Subject matter · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Economic Theory and Institutions · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
In and against Development
The Value of a Whale
From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics
Overcoming the coupled climate and biodiversity crises and their societal impacts
Economic Imperialism
The 2024 state of the climate report
Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions
Social Capital Versus Social Theory
Whither economics imperialism? Debating Ambrosino, Cedrini and Davis
Today’s economics
In Support of a Renewable Energy and Materials Economy
Our Two Climate Crises Challenge
On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change
Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development
What is ecological economics
The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement
Energy transitions or additions
The rise of “behavioral man”
Modeling myths
Prepare your indicators
The failure of Integrated Assessment Models as a response to ‘climate emergency’ and ecological breakdown
The Dasgupta Review deconstructed
Decoupling
The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change
Economics imperialism’, education policy and educational theory
Economics, equity and sustainable development
Natural capital must be defended
The limits of 'neoliberal natures
Ecosystem services between integration and economics imperialism
Selling Nature to save It? Biodiversity and Green Developmentalism
Unpacking the politics of natural capital and economic metaphors in environmental policy discourse
Accumulation by Decarbonization and the Governance of Carbon Offsets
The Amazon as a Frontier of Capital Accumulation
Revisiting Connections between Capital and Nature II
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |