Introduction

Abstract

The international workshop which is summarized in this volume concentrated on the social or external environmental costs of electricity production and use. This rather limited scope should not be interpreted as a value judgement on the relative importance of this specific instance of external effects in market economies. It merely mirrors the fact that during the rather short period of empirical research conducted until today this has been the first main focus of our research and discussions. There are other instances of external effects than health and environmental damages like non sustainable resource use, certain macroeconomic effects, or governmental subsidies, which need to be addressed just as well. Furthermore, external effects play an important role with other types of energy or in other sectors of the economy like chemical industry or the transport sector. Some of these effects are at least equally important as the instances or external costs addressed in the workshop. Thus, most participants of the workshop think that it is mandatory to substantially broaden our research on and the discussion of the problems of external effects of economic activities in the future. Nevertheless, the ideas and results presented at the workshop on the narrower subject may serve as a starting point for the research on the more general problem.