Making a difference — how environmental economists can influence the policy process — a case study of David W Pearce

Abstract

Can environmental economists influence policy? If so, how? This paper addresses these two questions using the late David Pearce’s career as a case study. Influence can be exercised, but Pearce’s career shows that certain conditions must be met. The first is desire: he wanted to influence policy, and directed a high proportion of his efforts to doing so. He focused particular attention on the power centres of his time — the OECD, World Bank, European Commission, UN, UK government; his influence was aided by his status and location as a professor in a prestige university (UCL) in a major global city (London). His messages were consistent and clear: theory is important, and can be used to frame most environmental challenges as regards both explanation and solution; externalities can be valued; assessing benefits and costs of options is important; market signals (taxes etc) and incentives generally are powerful shapers of behaviour; stock of capital (human, built, natural) is a key measure of sustainability. He communicated simply and clearly, in words and phrases that Ministers for Finance and journalists could understand. All of the broadsheet newspapers in England (Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Times) were grist to Pearce’s mill of advocacy for environmental economics. He provided the Blueprint books that could be read on a commute and summaries to the media that they could fit into a 1,000 word piece. He didn’t seek out, but neither did he shirk controversy. He worked with various interest groups and politicians, but never to the point were he was co-opted. He initiated and directed the MSc in Environmental and Resource Economics that created an ever-widening and influential pool of advocates for his ideas. Finally, he achieved a prodigious academic output that ensures a sort of immortality, and provided the intellectual ballast the enabled his policy influence. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2007Policy influence, Communication, Media, Environmental economics, Incentives and behaviour, Benefit cost analysis, Valuing externalities, World bank, OECD, European commission, UNECE,

Reflections—Looking Back at Social Discounting Policy: The Influence of Papers, Presentations, Political Preconditions, and Personalities

“…It is not simply a process of connecting the supply with the demand and facilitating a transaction. The policy entrepreneur must be able to "blast through" the inertia and status quo bias of government processes and institutions and make a difference (Convery 2007, Sunstein, 2014. In the US, environmental non-governmental organizations often play a key role in overcoming inertia and converting ideas into policy.…”

“…David Pearce's formidable contribution to national and international environmental policy in general, and his considerable capacity as a policy broker, was summarised after his death in 2005 byConvery (2007).9 The project fee was £20,000, shared equally between ODPM and DEFRA. £10,000 was regarded as the upper limit of funding beyond which the involvement of ministers would have been likely.…”

Harnessing the political economy of environmental policy: David Pearce’s contribution to OECD

“…See also the papers byConvery (2007),Simpson (2007),Eichner and Pethig (2007) and of coursePearce (2007) in this volume.…”

David Pearce and the economic valuation of biodiversity

“…However, I wish also explicitly to acknowledge the major contributions made by scholars such as Edward Barbier, Ian Bateman, Anil Markandya, Dominic Moran, R. Kerry Turner, and a host of others. As discussed by Convery (2007), David Pearce's work was greatly advanced by his association with such collaborators, as is the state of the profession of environmental and resource economics more generally.…”