Externalities of Consumption: An Exploratory Systematic Study

Author: Yu Haishan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-20
Features: It is generally believed that the founder of externality theory is Marshall. The modern concept of externality theory was proposed by Pigou and further developed by Coase and others. Whether Pigou or Coase, in their research on externalities, they primarily focused on production externalities while neglecting consumption externalities. It was not until the late 1990s that research on consumption externalities gradually emerged. Foreign scholar Joachim Schleich (1997) and Chinese scholar Li Jianxin (2001) wrote articles specifically on consumption externalities. Overall, as a cutting-edge research topic in academia, the specialized study of consumption externalities by scholars both domestically and internationally has just begun, or can even be said to be in a largely blank state. Given the of consumption externalities, which differ from production externalities, and considering the increasingly severe global trend of consumption externalities, systematic analysis and specialized research on consumption externalities have become an urgent task. This book takes consumption externalities as its core research focus, following a logical progression from theoretical analysis of consumption externalities to an examination of practical forms of consumption externalities, and from domestic research on consumption externalities to international research. In the theoretical analysis of consumption externalities, this book primarily studies from the perspectives of economics and demography, proposing corresponding countermeasures based on these insights. In the examination of practical forms of consumption externalities, the book uses car consumption as a case study, systematically analyzing various forms of externalities in car consumption and the externalities associated with car consumption in China. This book tentatively proposes and analyzes policies applicable to correcting consumption externalities. Correcting consumption externalities must be based on economic measures, such as taxation, fees, and deposit systems, to internalize the environmental external costs of consumption. This aligns with the entire market economy system. Only when economic measures are ineffective or impractical can government command-and-control measures serve as a supplementary approach.