Abstract

II report on reports u. S. Congressional Budget Office Reviewed By Giles Atkinson n recent years, few aspects of the environmental debate Patrice Gordon (both of the U.S. Congressional Budget have received as much attention as green accounting. But Office) is a report to the U.S. Joint Economic Committee why has so much excitement surrounded what basically and reflects increasing political interest in this area. The amounts to a national accounting issue? One reason is the report will also be of significant interest to a wider audience, ongoing debate on how to measure human well-being and although, apart from the summary, a little knowledge of economic progress, including the search for environmental accounting identities and the green accounting literature indicators. will help. An important aspect of this survey is the authors' Many are probably familiar with the shortcomings of welcome combination of major theoretical concerns with existing measures of income such as gross domestic product practical accounting issues. Prince and Gordon also ac- (GOP). Without becoming too knowledge the important role of technical, GOP mainly consists valuation techniques, which is of the value of final sales of developed in the environmental goods and services during a cer­ economics literature.