Stefan Baumgärtner
University of Freiburg
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Featured researches published by Stefan Baumgärtner.
Ecological Economics | 2001
Stefan Baumgärtner; Harald Dyckhoff; Malte Faber; John L. R. Proops; Johannes Schiller
Joint production is suggested as one of the conceptual foundations of ecological economics. The notion of joint production springs immediately from the application of thermodynamics, and has a long history in economic analysis. Considerations of joint production give rise to philosophical concerns relating to responsibility and knowledge. The concept of joint production is easily comprehensible, and is also constitutive and supportive of a range of concepts current in ecological economic thought.
Ecology and Society | 2011
Stefan Baumgärtner; Sandra Derissen; Martin F. Quaas; Sebastian Strunz
We perform a model analysis to study the origins of limited resilience in coupled ecological-economic systems. We demonstrate that under open access to ecosystems for profit-maximizing harvesting forms, the resilience properties of the system are essentially determined by consumer preferences for ecosystem services. In particular, we show that complementarity and relative importance of ecosystem services in consumption may significantly decrease the resilience of (almost) any given state of the system. We conclude that the role of consumer preferences and management institutions is not just to facilitate adaptation to, or transformation of, some natural dynamics of ecosystems. Rather, consumer preferences and management institutions are themselves important determinants of the fundamental dynamic characteristics of coupled ecological-economic systems, such as limited resilience.
Journal of Industrial Ecology | 2003
Stefan Baumgärtner; Jakob de Swaan Arons
The laws of thermodynamics are employed as an analytical framework within which results about societys metabolism may be rigorously deduced in energetic and material terms. We demonstrate that the occurrence of waste is an unavoidable necessity in the industrial production of desired goods. Although waste is thus an essential qualitative element of industrial production, the quantitative extent to which waste occurs may vary within certain limits according to the degree of thermodynamic (in) efficiency with which these processes are operated. We discuss the question of which proportion of the amount of waste currently generated is due to thermodynamic necessity and which proportion is due to thermodynamic inefficiency.
Archive | 2006
Stefan Baumgärtner
In this paper I address the question of exactly how to measure biodiversity by reviewing and conceptually comparing ecological and economic measures of biodiversity. It turns out that there are systematic differences between these two classes of measures, which are related to a difference in the philosophical perspective on biodiversity between ecologists and economists. While ecologists tend to view biodiversity from a conservative perspective, economists usually adopt a liberal perspective. As a consequence, ecologists and economists generally appreciate biodiversity for different reasons and value its different aspects and components in a different way. I conclude that the measurement of biodiversity requires prior value judgments as to what purpose biodiversity serves in ecological-economic systems.
Archive | 2009
Roland Olbrich; Martin F. Quaas; Stefan Baumgärtner
Studying the sustainable use of ecosystem services under uncertainty requires the consideration of the stochastic dynamics of the system under study, risk and time preferences, risk management strategies and normative views pertaining to sustainability. To gather this information for an important ecological-economic system, we conducted a survey of commercial cattle farmers in semi-arid rangelands of Namibia, a system that features risks on various space and time scales. Here we present a description of the research aims, design and conduction of the survey, and analyze and discuss the homogeneity and representativeness of our survey population. The survey consisted of a mail-in questionnaire and in-field experiments. We combined two existing farm-address databases, reaching 77% of the estimated 2,500 cattle farmers. The return rate of questionnaires exceeded 20%, and response rate to individual questions surpassed 95% and 90% for the majority of non-sensitive and sensitive questions, respectively. Distinct sub-sample groups within the survey population did not differ in the analyzed characteristics with the exception of ethnicity, regional location of farmland and an intentionally induced bias for residency on farm. It has turned out that we have undersampled distinct population segments of farmers, such as indigenous farmers or farmers not belonging to the main interest group of commercial cattle farming. Notwithstanding, we consider the survey to be highly successful, yielding a rich dataset which allows diverse analyses.
Books | 2006
Stefan Baumgärtner; Malte Faber; Johannes Schiller
This groundbreaking book takes a fresh look at how environmental problems emerge from economic activity and how they may be addressed in a responsible and sustainable manner. At its centre is the concept of joint production. This captures the phenomenon whereby several effects necessarily emerge from one activity and whereby human action always entails unintended consequences. This, according to the authors, is the structural cause behind modern-day environmental problems.
Ecohealth | 2004
Stefan Baumgärtner
This article uses an ecological-economic approach to study optimal investment in multi-species protection when species interact in an ecosystem. The analysis is based on a model of stochastic species extinction in which survival probabilities are interdependent. Individual species protection plans can increase a species’ survival probability within certain limits and contingent upon the existence or absence of other species. Protection plans are costly and the conservation budget is fixed. It is assumed that human well-being depends solely on the services provided by one particular species, but other species contribute to overall ecosystem functioning and thus influence the first species’ survival probability. One result is that it may be optimal to invest in the protection of those species that do not directly contribute to human well-being, even if biological conservation decisions are exclusively derived from such a utilitarian framework. Another result is that the rank ordering of spending priorities among different species protection plans, as obtained under the assumption of independent species, may be completely reversed by taking species interaction into account. The conclusion is that effective species protection should go beyond targeting individual species, and consider species relations within whole ecosystems as well as overall ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem health is identified as a necessary prerequisite for successful species protection in situ.
Archive | 2014
Jessica Ingenillem; Joachim Merz; Stefan Baumgärtner
We study the determinants and interactions of sustainability and risk management with a cross-sectional dataset on commercial cattle farming in semi-arid rangelands in Namibia. Cattle farmers in Namibia act within a coupled ecological-economic system that is subject to extensive degradation and high environmental risk. Based on survey data, we develop variables for sustainability and risk management within this context, identify their determinants and analyse relevant interactions. Our results show that the ecosystem condition is positively influenced when financial risk management strategies are applied. On-farm risk management, like additional feed for cattle or resting part of the rangeland, and collective risk management through interest groups or governmental support, instead, do not impact on the sustainability of the farm. Risk management itself is predominantly influenced by various risks linked to the farming business and the farmers’ educational background. Furthermore, the gathered experience through operation time on farm decreases the application of on-farm risk management and favours the use of financial and collective risk management. Additionally, collective risk management is influenced by risk preferences, indicating that farmers who are more risk friendly apply forms of joint risk management strategies to a lesser extent. Risk friendliness is also negatively related to the economic sustainability, specified as the ability to sustain the livelihood of the farmer. However, the results show no indication whatsoever that time preferences impact on either sustainability or risk management.
Ecological Economics | 2003
Stefan Baumgärtner; Ralph Winkler
We examine the price ambivalence of low quality waste paper (grades 1.02 and 1.04) on the German market. Since 1990 the price of these grades is at times positive and at times negative. The underlying reason is the combination of three institutional and technical characteristics of the market: (i) As a result of waste management legislation the supply of waste paper is mostly independent of its price and its demand. Supply is bounded from below by collection and utilization quotas fixed by the Regulation on Packaging Waste enacted in 1991. (ii) The only alternative to costly disposal of waste paper by dumping or incineration is its use as a secondary resource in the production of new paper, as only the paper industry is capable of using waste paper in a productive manner in significant amount. (iii) Yet, its use as a substitute for primary inputs is technically limited. In this article, we describe the technical and institutional conditions leading to price ambivalence and discuss the consequences for supply, demand and trade of waste paper.
Archive | 2006
Stefan Baumgärtner; Martin F. Quaas
The ecological literature suggests that biodiversity reduces the variance of ecosystem services. Thus, conservative biodiversity management has an insurance value to risk-averse users of ecosystem services. We analyze a conceptual ecological-economic model in which such management measures generate a private benefit and, via ecosystem processes at higher hierarchical levels, a positive externality on other ecosystem processes at higher hierarchical levels, a positive externality on other ecosystem users. We find that ecosystem management and environmental policy depend on the extent of uncertainty and risk-aversion as follows: (i) Individual effort to improve ecosystem quality unambiguously increases. The free-rider problem may decrease or increase, depending on the characteristics of the ecosytsem and its management; in particular, (ii) the size of the externality may decrease or increase, depending on how individual and aggregate management effort influence biodiversity; and (iii) the welfare loss due to free-riding may decrease or increase, depending on how biodiversity influences ecosystem service provision.