Joan Martínez Alier wins the Leontief Prize in Economics

Professor Joan Martinez Alier has been recognised with the award Economics, Equity, and the Environment from the Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute.

13/10/2016

Tufts University’s Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) will award its 2017 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought to ICTA-UAB researcher Joan Martinez Alier and James Boyce from the University of Massachusetts. This edition's award, titled "Economics, Equity, and the Environment," recognises these researchers for their ground-breaking theoretical and applied work which has 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.”

GDAE awards the Leontief Prize each year to leading theorists who have developed innovative work in economics which addresses contemporary realities and supports just and sustainable societies.
GDAE inaugurated the Leontief Prize in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and GDAE advisory board member Wassily Leontief. The Leontief Prize recognises 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.

The ceremony and lectures by the awardees will take place on 28 March 2017 on Tufts University’s Medford campus, Massachusetts; further details will be forthcoming.

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 Oxford University (St. Antony’s College), Stanford University, the University of California, Davis, FLACSO, Ecuador, and Yale University. Most recently he served as co-director of the EJAtlas (www.ejatlas.com) 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).

Learn more about the Leontief Prize here.