Pearce, David W. 1941–2005

(David William Pearce)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born October 11, 1941, in Harrow, England; died September 8, 2005. Economist, educator, and author. Pearce was a retired University College London professor who specialized in the study of environmental economics in which the establishment of environmental protections are weighed against their economic costs. His educational background included a B.A. and M.A. from Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1963 and 1967, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia. During the mid-1960s, Pearce taught at the University of Lancaster, Bailrigg. He subsequently was on the faculty of the University of Southampton and the University of Leicester, and at the latter was director of the Public Sector Economics Research Centre from 1974 to 1977. That year, he moved on to the University of Aberdeen, where he was professor of political economy and, from 1981 to 1983, head of his department. Pearce's longest academic association with University College London began in 1983. Here, he headed the department of economics from 1984 to 1988 and was director of the London Environmental Economics Centre from 1988 to 1990, and associate director the next two years. He also became director of the school's Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment in 1991, and retired as a professor emeritus in 2004. As an economist, Pearce was renowned for spearheading the discipline of environmental economics. His scientific, sensible approach to the controversial issue of the importance of a clean environment versus the economic costs swayed government policy in the United Kingdom. Pearce created highly detailed cost-benefit analyses of environmental protection and proposed ways to balance business and the environment, such as the creation of green taxes and tradable development permits. A prolific author, coauthor, and editor, he published over forty books on economics and the environment, including Environmental Economics (1976), Blueprint for a Green Economy (1989), The Social Costs of Energy (1992), and Economics and Environment: Essays on Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development (1998). For his many contributions, he was named to the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

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Times (London, England), November 16, 2005, p. 64.