ABSTRACT
Can economics form part of the solution rather than the problem? Is there a form of economic language that can be used in dialogue with private stakeholders and/or public policy makers that may help to broaden understanding of the wider issues pertaining to street trees that other types of arguments may not? This chapter seeks to identify how economic deliberation of the economic and social value of street trees needs to develop beyond a simplistic private, or even narrowly conceived public, cost-benefit analysis. Market failure occurs when the private assessment of costs and benefits fails to equate to broader social impact. If these externalities can be identified and included in a more comprehensive social cost-benefit calculation, many of the negative consequences of under-valuing natural assets should diminish. This is not easy, of course, but there are a number of tools and approaches that can be considered. For example, this chapter explains why the combination of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding and private contractor incentives will typically result in sub-optimal outcomes for the local community as a whole and engages with concepts developed from the emerging field investigating the economics of happiness, questioning whether they may provide additional tools to use to construct a more comprehensive approach towards the economics of street trees.
