Most insights of environmental economics are in line with the standard neoclassical economic model of rational behaviour, formulated in terms of maximization of utility in general, or of profits in particular. The standard theory of environmental policy is a case in point. However, the maximization hypothesis and its methodological foundation have been criticized on many grounds related to a la...

Many mainstream neo-classical economists interpret responses to Contingent Valuation (CV) methodologies as being an unbiased estimate of economic and personal preferences regarding an environmental change. Sagoff offers an alternative interpretation, claiming that environmental assessments primarily reflect citizen not personal concerns. The current study assesses Sagoff’s assumptions and the n...

We report from a project on the futures of personal mobility in the UK, in the context of sustainable mobility and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. This paper looks at how people, behaviour and mobility are imagined in visioning documents (forecasts, pathways, etc.) in the future up to 2050, a timeline with great emission reduction targets. We use the lens of two inno...

This theory testing study investigates the decision-making of the member states in the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO, using a game theoretical approach. Game theory has its origins in political philosophy and can thus be valuable when analysing the behaviour of states in international regimes. Through using the specific game theory model Stag Hunt, this study aims to examine if such a mode...

Most insights of environmental economics are in line with the standard neoclassical economic model of rational behaviour, formulated in terms of maximization of utility in general, or profits in particular. The standard theory of environmental policy is a case in point. However, the maximization hypothesis and its methodological foundation have been criticized on many grounds, related to a lack...

Transmission of HIV, like that of other behaviourally mediated infections, is influenced by the particular environments in which risk is produced. 2 The spread of HIV is shaped by variations in population behaviour and public health response, which are themselves shaped by differences in social, cultural, economic, and political condition. Prevention strategies aimed at individual behaviour may...

In a prolific and illustrious career, the late Gary Becker (1930–2014) developed what he would later call "the economic approach to human behaviour". One of the most significant strands of that research was that which focused on human capital, occuping a significant part of his career, especially in his early years. In this paper we will focus on Becker’s early work in human capital up to the p...

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the West German government was faced with the challenge of addressing a damaging health behaviour, smoking, in the context of an emerging late modern democracy, when the precedent for addressing that behaviour was set in the Nazi past. This paper details the two-pronged approach which the government took: seeking restrictions on cigarette advertising, whilst e...