Impacts of Pollution on Economics

Although, as has been shown in the preceding two sections, economic researchers spo­radically took up issues on natural resources and the environment as important themes of economics, it can hardly be said that resources and environmental economics were established as proper fields of economics before the high-growth era which came soon after World War II.

At the very time of growth and development after the war, however, heavy pollution arose in most of the advanced countries. Air in big cities such as London and Tokyo was polluted not only by smoke and soot emitted from smokestacks of plants, but by exhaust gas from automobiles. Rivers were contaminated by waste water from plants and houses. People came to notice that environmental resources are not limitless.