ABSTRACT

Economics is about satisfying competing human wants, within the limits set by scarce resources. While a formal discipline of landscape economics only emerged much later, undoubtedly the landscaping enterprises of Versailles, Stourhead, Branitz and such would – must – have been subject to formal costing. Some valuation methods focus on downstream economic consequences of aesthetic conditions. The quality of intimate landscape also results in better mental and has a socialising influence, with saved social costs via improved civil behaviour, reduced crime and lower opportunity costs resulting from disaffection. Activities detrimental to landscape may entail financial cost in the subsequent restoration of aesthetic quality, as in reinstatement of mineral extraction sites. 'Environmental quasi-markets' may be developed through premium prices for landscape-tagged goods such as regional foods. The most characteristic element of landscape economics – what most frequently defines the activity of those called landscape economists – is monetary valuation of landscape.