Global Development And Environment Institute
Tufts Institute to Award Economics Prize to
James Boyce and Joan Martinez-Alier
Awardees to present Leontief Prize Lectures on
Economics, Equity, and the Environment March 28, 2017
October 6, 2016: Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) announced today that it will award its 2017 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought to James Boyce and Joan Martinez-Alier. GDAE awards the Leontief Prize each year to leading theorists who have developed innovative work in economics that addresses contemporary realities and supports just and sustainable societies.
The award recognizes Boyce and Martinez-Alier for their ground-breaking theoretical and applied work in which they have effectively integrated ecological, developmental, and justice- oriented approaches into the field of economics.
“It is essential to address the ecological crisis generated by the old-paradigm economy,” said GDAE Co-Director Neva Goodwin. “James Boyce and Joan Martinez-Alier have highlighted the relationship between economic systems, resources (materials and energy) and social issues.
Their particular focus on the intersections among economics, poverty, and inequality has strongly informed GDAE’s thinking on these issues.”
The ceremony and lectures by the awardees on the theme “Economics, Equity, and the Environment” will take place on March 28, 2017, on Tufts University’s Medford campus.
GDAE inaugurated the Leontief Prize in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and GDAE advisory board member Wassily Leontief. The Leontief Prize recognizes economists whose work, like that of GDAE and Leontief himself, combines theoretical and empirical research to promote a more comprehensive understanding of social and environmental processes.
2017 Awardees
James K. Boyce is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and director of the program on Development, Peacebuilding and the Environment at the Political Economy Research Institute (www.peri.umass.edu). He received his Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University. Dr. Boyce’s current work focuses on strategies for combining poverty reduction with environmental protection, and on the relationships between inequality and environmental degradation. Since 2011 he has served as the president of Econ4: Economics for People, the Planet and the Future (http://econ4.org/).
Dr. Boyce’s latest book is Economics, the Environment, and Our Common Wealth (2013). His previous books include Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration (2007); Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership (2003); and The Political Economy of the Environment (2002).
Joan Martinez-Alier is emeritus professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where he received his PhD in 1976. During his career, he has held positions at at Oxford University (St. Antony’s College), Stanford University, the University of California (Davis), FLACSO (Ecuador), and Yale University. Most recently he has served as co-director of the EJAtlas (www.ejatlas.org) and currently directs the EnvJustice Project at ICTA-UAB (2016-2021) on ecological distribution conflicts and the global movement for environmental justice. This project is funded by a European Research Council Advanced Grant. He has played a crucial role in the development of ecological economics, and served as a founding member and past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics.
Dr. Martinez-Alier is the author of numerous renowned books and articles, including Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and Society (1987) and The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (2002). He also co-edited the textbook Ecological Economics from the Ground Up (2012) and the Handbook of Ecological Economics (2015).
The Global Development And Environment Institute was founded in 1993 with the goal of promoting a better understanding of how societies can pursue their economic and community goals in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The Institute develops textbooks and course materials and carries out policy-relevant research on globalization, climate change, and the role of the market in environmental policy.
GDAE has awarded the Leontief Prize to Amartya Sen, John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Streeten, Herman Daly, Alice Amsden, Dani Rodrik, Nancy Folbre, Robert Frank, Richard Nelson, Ha- Joon Chang, Samuel Bowles, Juliet Schor, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Stephen DeCanio, José Antonio Ocampo, Robert Wade, Bina Agarwal, Daniel Kahneman, Martin Weitzman, Nicholas Stern, Michael Lipton, C. Peter Timmer, Albert O. Hirschman (posthumous), Frances Stewart, Angus Deaton, James K. Galbraith, Duncan Foley, Lance Taylor, Amit Bhaduri, and Diane Elson.
For further information, please contact Erin Coutts at Erin.Coutts@tufts.edu or 617-627-6909.
