140 Book Notes

c

Henry M . Levin is Director and Professor at the Institute for Research on Educational Finance and Governance, School of Education, Stan- ford University.

ENERGY Energy Economics and Technology, by Phillip G . LeBel. London and William Colglazier Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982, 551 pp.

Price: $37.50 cloth, $14.95 paper. This long book on energy policy attempts to integrate a sophisti-

cated treatment of economics with a discussion of underlying ener- gy technologies. The topics covered include energy crises and public policy, technological dimensions and economics of energy resources, and the design and implementation of energy policy. Supplemented with selected readings, the book would be a very good basic text for a course on energy policy.

William Colglazier is Director of the Energy, Environment and Resources Center at the University of Tennessee.

Natural Gas: Prospects to 2000, by the International Energy Agency. Paris: The International Energy Agency, 1982,174 pp. Price: $24.00.

As with other studies done by the IEA, this work attempts to promote the replacement of oil with an alternative fuel which is perceived to be more secure. It provides a good review of the issues involved in the international natural gas market and includes some very helpful data. But the validity of the conclusions is reduced by the use of narrow scenarios. The reliance on a small range of oil prices and the assumption that cqnsumers will replace natural gas with petroleum if the prices are roughly equal weaken the results. The attempt to convince producers to increase their revenues by increasing sales through lower prices is to be applauded, but a

Book Notes 141

demonstration of generic market behavior might have been more useful than the specific examples given. This is a book to be owned for the background and data it provides rather than for policy purposes.

Michael Lynch is with the International Studies Program at the MIT Energy Laboratory.

Resources and Energy, by Ferdinand E. Banks. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983, 333 pp. Price: $34.95.

Although this is designed as a textbook introduction, readers new to the subject will find it difficult going. The book cries out for editorial intervention. Oil, gas, coal, uranium, and nonfuel minerals are taken up in turn, but do not receive parallel expositions. Inter- esting and useful material competes for space with the author’s rambling observations on the work of colleagues and the relevance of economic analysis for policy. The book offers an introduction to some topics in economic theory and econometrics, although a t one point the author disparages the former as “pseudoscientific manip- ulations” and the latter as “very often cynical and counterproduc- tive.” Those willing to persevere will find parts of the book worthwhile. An extensive reference list is accompanied by a short, highly idiosyncratic bibliographical essay.

Oil-Futures Markets, by William G . Prast and Howard L. Lax. Lex- ington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983, 193 pp. Price: $23.95.

Oil futures markets offer the intriguing prospect of reducing oil price instability, and of providing a means of policy intervention for releasing the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. These markets are sometimes considered arcane, however, and informa- tion is scarce and technical in nature. This book is useful in bridging the gap between the extensive literature on the petroleum market and the more specialized literature on commodity futures markets. Detailed explanations and examples of the workings of future con- tracts are provided, along with descriptions of the exchanges where trading takes place. The book would have been stronger if it con- tained more analytical material. As it stands, it provides a useful reference, although the flurry of recent developments has served to render any effort a bit out of date.

Robert Weiner is with the Energy and Environmental Policy Center, Haward University.

ENVIRONMENT Incentives for Environmental Protection, edited by Thomas C. Schell- John G. Francis ing. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983, 355 pp. Price: $32.50.

This is a well-integrated set of studies on the strengths and weak- nesses of employing pricing systems in environmental protection. The three cases are aircraft noise, airborne benzene, and an assess- ment of the implementation of the Clean Air Act. Schelling’s intro- duction ably discusses the current debate over the incentives

M. Gordon Wolman