Herman Daly is a U.S. economist who began researching the fusion of economics and ecology in the 1970s, highlighting the necessity to consider the laws of nature when structuring an economic system. His work supports the idea that for the human economy to subsist, it must function at a steady state within the productive and assimilative capacity of the earth’s ecosystem.
He is a professor at the University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs. From 1988 to 1994 he was senior economist in the environment department of the World Bank. Prior to 1988 he was the Alumni Professor of Economics at Louisiana State University, where he taught for twenty years. He is a co-founder and associate editor of the journal, Ecological Economics.
He is co-author with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. of For the Common Good (1989; 1994) which received the Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order. His other books include Steady-State Economics (Freeman, 1977; second edition, Island Press, 1991); Valuing the Earth (MIT, 1993) and Beyond Growth (Beacon, 1996). In 1996, he received the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Right Livelihood Award, Sweden's alternative to the Nobel Prize. In 1999 he was awarded the Sophie Prize (Norway) for contributions in the area of Environment and Development; in 2001 the Leontief Prize for contributions to economic thought, and in 2002 the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic for his work in steady state economics.
