Last Tuesday, October 26, students at the Coastal and Marine Management program were invited to a guest lecture given by Dr. Jon D. Erickson. The lecture was a part of the course Economics of Coastal and Marine Environments, taught by Dr. Gabriela Sabau, and was given via Skype. The lecture was a great success and evoked many questions on economics, the current global recession and how welfare in societies is measured.

 

Dr. Jon D. Erickson is a professor in the field of ecological economics at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Fund Institute for Ecological Economics at Vermont University in the US. Dr. Erickson is well introduced to circumstances in Iceland since he has been a visiting professor at the University of Iceland the past three years.

In his lecture, Dr. Erickson discussed the field of ecological economics, and how it may replace conventional (neoclassical) economics - the latter having been the main approach in economics in most countries and in the economical discourse in general the past decades. He also discussed the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) as opposed to Gross Domestic Production (GDP), and presented preliminary results of a GPI research project conducted on Iceland. This research project is done by him and Dr. Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir, assistant professor at the University of Iceland.

 

It is very valuable for the University Centre to get input from scholars such as Dr. Jon Erickson that are at the forefront of their research fields.