Giles Atkinson

Giles is Professor of Environmental Policy and is currently Head of the Environmental Economics and Policy Research Cluster in the Department of Geography and Environment. He is also an Associate of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment at LSE.

An environmental economist by training, Giles has published extensively on the subject of the sustainability of economic development. Much of this research has examined how policy-makers can construct better measures of economic progress through, for example, wealth accounting and natural capital accounting. His work additionally focuses on cost-benefit analysis and the environment and the valuation of natural capital.

Outside of LSE, Giles is currently a member of the:

• Policy and Technical Experts Committee (PTEC) for the World Bank's WAVES partnership (Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services)
• Steering Group for the Natural Capital Accounting Project of the ONS (UK Office for National Statistics)

He was a member of the UK Natural Capital Committee (NCC) from 2012 to 2015, an independent body advising HM Government on sustainable use of natural capital, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) until 2015. 

• Sustainability and economic development
• Natural capital accounting
• Valuing natural assets
• Cost-benefit analysis and the environment
• Environmental equity

Selected recent publications:

• Atkinson, G., S. Dietz, E. Neumayer and M. Agarwala (eds.) (2014) Handbook of Sustainable Development, 2nd edition, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham

• Fry, B.P., Agarwala, M., Atkinson, G., Clements, T., Homewood, K., Mourato, S., Rowcliffe, M., Wallace, G. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2015) “Monitoring Local Wellbeing in Environmental Interventions: A Consideration of Practical Trade-Offs”, Oryx

• E.J. Milner‐Gulland, McGregor, J.A., Agarwala, M., Atkinson, G. et al. (2014) “Accounting for the Impact of Conservation on Human Well‐Being”, Conservation Biology, 28 (5), 1160-1166

• Agarwala, M., Atkinson, G., Baldock, C. and Gardiner, B. (2014) “Natural Capital Accounting and Climate Change”, Nature Climate Change, 4(7): 520-522

• Lazaro, L. and Atkinson, G. (2013) “Nature, Roads or Hospitals? An Empirical Evaluation of ‘Sustainable Development Preferences’”, Ecological Economics, 95: 63-72

• Atkinson, Giles, Morse-Jones, Sian, Mourato, Susana and Provins, Allan (2012) ‘When to take “no” for an answer’?: using entreaties to reduce protests in contingent valuation studies. Environmental and resource economics, 51 (4). pp. 497-523. ISSN 0924-6460

• Atkinson, Giles, Bateman, Ian J. and Mourato, Susana (2012) Recent advances in the valuation of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Oxford review of economic policy, 28 (1). pp. 22-47. ISSN 0266-903X

• Metcalfe, Paul J., Baker, William, Andrews, Kevin, Atkinson, Giles, Bateman, Ian J., Butler, Sarah, Carson, Richard T., East, Jo, Gueron, Yves, Sheldon, Rob and Train, Kenneth (2012) An assessment of the nonmarket benefits of the water framework directive for households in England and Wales. Water resources research, 48 (3). W03526. ISSN 0043-1397

• Jones, Julia P. G., Collen, Ben, Atkinson, Giles, Baxter, Peter W., Bubb, Philip, Illian, Janine B., Katzner, Todd E., Keane, Aidan, Loh, Jonathan, McDonald-Madden, Eve, Nicholson, Emily, Pereira, Henrique M., Possingham, Hugh P., Pullin, Andrew S., Rodrigues, Ana S. L., Ruiz-Gutierrez, Viviana, Sommerville, Matthew and Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2011) The why, what, and how of global biodiversity indicators beyond the 2010 target. Conservation biology, 25 (3). pp. 450-457. ISSN 0888-8892

• Bateman, Ian J., Mace, Georgina M., Fezzi, Carlo, Atkinson, Giles and Turner, Kerry (2011) Economic analysis for ecosystem service assessments. Environmental and resource economics, 48 (2). pp. 177-218. ISSN 0924-6460

• Dietz, Simon and Atkinson, Giles (2010) The equity-efficiency trade-off in environmental policy: evidence from stated preferences. Land economics, 86 (3). 423 -443. ISSN 0023-7639

• 'Siblings, Not Triplets: Social preferences for risk, inequality and time in discounting climate change', Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Vol. 3, 2009. (with Simon Dietz, Jenn Helgeson, Cameron Hepburn and Hakon Sælen).

• 'Are We Willing to Pay Enough to "Back the Bid"? Valuing the intangible impacts of hosting the summer Olympic Games', Urban Studies, 45(2): 419-444, 2008, (with Susana Mourato and Stefan Szymanski and Ece Ozdemiroglu)

• 'Progress Along the Path: Evolving issues in the measurement of genuine saving', Environmental and Resource Economics, 37(1):43-61, 2007, (with Kirk Hamilton)

• Handbook of Sustainable Development, 2007, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (edited with Simon Dietz and Eric Neumayer)

• Wealth, Welfare and Sustainability: Advances in measuring sustainable development, 2006, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (with Kirk Hamilton)

• Recent Developments in Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Environment, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Paris: OECD, 2006, (with David Pearce and Susana Mourato)

• 'Savings, Growth and the Resource Curse Hypothesis', World Development, 31 (11),2003 (with Kirk Hamilton)