Peter Nijkamp
Free University, Amsterdam,
Department of Spatial Economics,
De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

POSITION STATEMENT

A Framework for Modelling Interaction Between Ecological
and Economic Systems (the Abstract)

Transboundary environmental issues, like climate change, have in recent years received much attention from the side of political scientists and economists. Within the economics discipline, we witness sometimes differences between ecologically-oriented and mainstream economists, which may form a barrier for proposing clear policy recommendations on external effects in open and interacting spatial systems. This unfortunate situation may be due to lack of an integrated analytical framework as well as to the multi-disciplinarity of the problem at hand. The present paper aims to identify some relevant aspects for a methodological synthesis for analysing sustainable development issues in open economic systems with a view to the development of an integrative framework through which a great many ecological-economic studies can be investigated. We focus on conceptual issues centring around the integration on interacting economic and ecological subsystems, inter alia in relation to spatial externalities and ecological footprints. Our discussion enables us to build a framework for a systematic categorisation of various types of models for economic-ecological interaction. The paper concludes with some reflections on the way forward.