Definition
Externalities may be defined as positive or negative side (external) effects of actions of one economic agent that affect the welfare of others who are not involved in these actions. These external effects are outside of the market mechanism. An externality is a cost or benefit imposed on people other than those who sell or buy the product. Negative externalities affect the welfare of current and future generations and inhibit the prospect of sustainability. Neutralization of negative externalities and creation of positive externalities are necessary conditions for achieving weak sustainability, but strong sustainability requires to conserve resources for future generations through the preservation of environmental rights.
Introduction
The importance of sustainable development has grown out of recognition that current economic activity may have important effects on future generations. Despite the...
References
Ahlheim M (2018) Environmental economics, the bioeconomy and the role of government. In: Lewandowski I (ed) Bioeconomy. Springer, Cham, pp 317–329
Beeks JC, Ziko A (2018) Internalizing economic externalities on the macroeconomic stage. Exploring and expanding Paul Hawken’s the ecology of commerce: a declaration of sustainability for globalized solutions. Eur J Sustain Dev Res 2(1):03
Bithas K (2011) Sustainability and externalities: is the internalization of externalities a sufficient condition for sustainability? Ecol Econ 70:1703–1706
Dasgupta PS, Ehrlich PR (2013) Pervasive externalities at the population consumption, and environment. Science 340(6130):324–328
Ding H, He M, Deng C (2014) Lifecycle approach to assessing environmental friendly product project with internalizing environmental externality. J Clean Prod 66:128–138
Hawken P (2010) The ecology of commerce: a declaration of sustainability, 3rd edn. Harper Collins Business, New York
Laffont JJ (2008) Externalities. In: Palgrave Macmillan (ed) The new Palgrave dictionary of economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Nguyena TLT, Laratte B, Guillaumeb B, Huab A (2016) Quantifying environmental externalities with a view to internalizing them in the price of products, using different monetization models. Resour Conserv Recycl 109:13–23
Pigou AC (1920) The economics of welfare, 4th edn. Macmillan, London
Stoneham G, Eigenraam M, Ridley A, Barr N (2003) The application of sustainability concepts to Australian agriculture: an overview. Aust J Exp Agric 43:195–203
Tietenberg TH, Lewis L (2009) Environmental and natural resource economics Addison-Wesley series in economics. Pearson Addison Wesley, Boston
van den Bergh J (2010) Externality or sustainability economics? Ecol Econ 69:2047–2052
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Tamasauskiene, Z., Žičkienė, S. (2019). Externalities and Sustainability Processes. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2_279-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2_279-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63951-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63951-2
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education