Wealth, welfare and sustainability : advances in measuring sustainable development / Kirk Hamilton, Giles Atkinson.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-189) and index.

Introduction -- Wealth and social welfare -- Population growth and sustainability -- Testing genuine saving -- Resources, growth and the 'paradox of plenty' -- A Hartwick Rule counterfactual -- Deforestation : accounting for a multiple-use resource -- Accounting for technological change -- Resource price trends and prospects for development -- International flows of resource rents -- Summary and conclusions.

"Economic theory suggests that there should be a link between future wellbeing and current wealth. This volume explores this linkage under a variety of headings: population growth, technological change, deforestation and natural resource trade. While the relevant theory is presented briefly, the chief emphasis is on empirical measurement of the change in real wealth: this measure of net or 'genuine' saving is a key indicator of sustainable development. The methodological and empirical work is bolstered by tests of the predictive power of genuine saving in explaining future consumption and economic growth. Just as importantly, the authors show that many resource-abundant countries would be considerably wealthier today had they managed to save and invest the profits from natural resource exploitation in the past." "Wealth, Welfare and Sustainability will be of great interest to environmental and resource economists, specialists in 'sustainability' indicators from other disciplines and also development and growth economists."--Jacket.