Fundamentals of Environmental and Urban Economics: Matthew E. Kahn

This book presents a broad overview of the key issues in modern environmental economics with a focus on understanding and solving urban pollution challenges in developed and developing nations. By embracing "free market environmentalism", this book explores how cities and nations can achieve the "win-win" of economic growth and reduced urban pollution. Special attention is paid to the incentives of households, firms and governments in reducing the production of pollution. The book examines a number of urban pollution challenges including; air, water, noise, garbage pollution and the global challenge of climate change. Unlike other environmental economics books, this book focuses on how to harness free market capitalism to solve environmental challenges.

Matthew E. Kahn is a Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the Department of Economics, the Department of Public Policy, the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA School of Law. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the IZA. He serves as the Research Director at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. Before joining the UCLA faculty in January 2007, he taught at Columbia and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard, Stanford and the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment (Brookings Institution Press 2006) and the co-author of Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War (Princeton University Press 2008). He is the author of Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter World (Basic Books 2010). His research areas include; environmental, urban, energy and real estate economics.