Economic Analysis of Social Common Capital
Cambridge University Press, 8/4/2005
EAN 9780521847889, ISBN10: 0521847885
Hardcover, 418 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
Social common capital provides members of society with those services and institutional arrangements that are crucial in maintaining human and cultural life. Social common capital is comprised of three categories: natural capital, social infrastructure, and institutional capital. Natural capital consists of natural environment and resources including the Earth's atmosphere. Social infrastructure consists of roads, bridges, public transportation systems, and public utilities. Institutional capital includes hospitals, educational institutions, judicial and police systems, public administrative services, financial and monetary institutions, and cultural capital. This 2005 book attempts to modify and extend the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to make them broad enough to analyze the economic implications of social common capital. It aims to find the institutional arrangements and policy measures that will bring about the optimal state of affairs in which the natural and institutional components are blended together harmoniously to realize the sustainable state as suggested by John Stuart Mill.
1. Fisheries, forestry, and agriculture in the theory of the commons
2. The prototype model of social common capital
3. Sustainability and social common capital
4. A commons model of social common capital
5. Energy and recycling of residual wastes
6. Agriculture and social common capital
7. Global warming and sustainable development
8. Education as social common capital
9. Medical care as social common capital.
'Uzawa has again contributed to the economic analysis of socially important problems. His treatment of social common capital shows the power of economic theory and is marked by Uzawa's customary clarity of exposition and mastery of analysis.' Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University 'Professor Uzawa pioneered the economics of social common capital decades before it received the empirical attention it deserved. If theoretical explorations of the subject haven't received a contemporary airing, here it is. This is vintage Uzawa: deep, elegant, and highly relevant.' Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge 'In this masterful volume, using the tools of mathematical economics, Hirofumi Uzawa shows how economic performance is critically tied to what he terms 'social common capital' - collective goods that must be provisioned through social and political mechanisms that lie beyond the market. The volume is an intriguing and accomplished piece of work by a highly distinguished scholar.' Richard Howarth, Dartmouth College 'No one but Hiro Uzawa could produce so precise, careful, and complete an analysis of the main forms of common property resources to be found in modern industrial society. Fortunately he has done it and provided about as much intellectual unity as seems appropriate. Filling in the worldly details will be worked on by many people for many years, but now there is a framework, indeed a common resource.' Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology