Title: A comment on the independence of allocation, distribution and scale

Authors: Philip Lawn

Addresses: Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia

Abstract: There has been considerable debate about the independence of the three policy goals of allocative efficiency, distributional equity, and ecological sustainability since Daly|s (1992) paper on the subject (Prakash and Gupta, 1994; Daly, 1994; Stewen, 1998; Daly, 1999; Stewen, 1999). I would like to weigh in here, if I may, because I think it is a key policy issue requiring further discussion. Furthermore, having attended a number of ecological economics| conferences in recent years, it is clear that the issue is highly contentious and often misunderstood. I hope to shed a little more light on the subject by focusing most of my attention on the 1999 reply by Daly (1999) to Stewen|s (1998) paper and Stewen’s response to Daly|s reply (Stewen, 1999).

Keywords: sustainable development; policy goals; policy instruments; allocative efficiency; distributional equity; ecological sustainability; ecological economics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2004.006247

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2004 Vol.4 No.4, pp.298 - 303

Published online: 07 Feb 2005 *

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