This book addresses nine relevant questions: Will population growth reduce the growth rate of per capita income because it reduces the per capita availability of exhaustible resources? How about for renewable resources? Will population growth aggravate degradation of the natural environment? Does more rapid growth reduce worker output and consumption? Do rapid growth and greater density lead to productivity gains through scale economies and thereby raise per capita income? Will rapid population growth reduce per capita levels of education and health? Will it increase inequality of income distribution? Is it an important source of labor problems and city population absorption? And, finally, do the economic effects of population growth justify government programs to reduce fertility that go beyond the provision of family planning services?
This textbook covers the full range of topics and issues normally included in a course on economic growth and development. Both mainstream economic perspectives as well as the multi-paradigmatic, inter-disciplinary, and dynamic-evolutionary perspectives from heterodox economics are detailed. Economic development is viewed in terms of the long-run well-being of humanity, social stability, environmental sustainability, and just distribution of economic gains, not simply as the growth of GDP. Furthermore, this textbook explicitly recognizes the complexity of economic development by linking economic activity to our broader social and natural environments.The textbook's unique feature is its focus on the natural environment. Both the historical effects of economic development on the environment and the environmental constraints on future economic development are thoroughly discussed in two chapters on environmental issues and policies. In fact, because economic development is defined in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability, the natural environment is included in discussions throughout the book.The textbook is inter-disciplinary: knowledge from fields such as sociology, psychology, political science, economic history, and ecology is called on to enhance the economic analysis. A thorough historical account of the development of the principal paradigms of economic development is also included, and the important issues of institutional development and cultural change merit their own chapters. Two chapters on technological change holistically focus on production technologies as well as the dynamic performance of entire economic, social, and ecological systems. Also, the important relationship between economic development and globalization is presented in three chapters on international trade, international finance and investment, and immigration from both orthodox and heterodox perspectives.
As improving energy efficiency and increasing energy R&D investment may be the main means for China's industrial sector to achieve sustainable growth, this book attempts to unify energy use efficiency and energy R&D inputs into a standardized economic analysis framework. By distinguishing between energy R&D inputs and non-energy R&D inputs, this book draws on the research paradigm of neoclassical economics to clarify the basic concepts and endogenous mechanisms of energy-saving technological progress as a logical starting point. Under the framework of the existing endogenous growth theory analysis, the heterogeneous R&D inputs are divided into two different mechanisms that affect energy use efficiency, namely factor substitution effect and energy-efficient input increase effect, and a heterogeneous R&D input is constructed. This book constructed an analytical framework for endogenous energy-saving technological progress in the industrial sector based on heterogeneous R&D inputs; it established a mathematical model for the endogenous energy-saving technological advancement of the industrial sector based on heterogeneous R&D inputs; it estimated the energy-saving technological progress rate of 37 Chinese industrial sub-sectors from 1980 to 2010; fourth, it has empirically examined the relationship between the heterogeneous R&D investment in China's industrial sector and its energy-saving technological advancement rate.
This thesis covers a broad range of topics in the general area of economic growth theory and economics of technological change. It is primarily about the ultimate sources of growth and its ultimate limitations. We scrutinize the implications of several specifications of long-run growth “engines” found in the theoretical literature and put forward their generalizations and extensions. At the highest level of generality, we provide a formal proof that balanced (i.e. exponential) growth requires knife-edge assumptions which cannot be satisfied by typical values of model parameters. This result implies that at least one such knife-edge assumption must be made if a given model is supposed to deliver balanced growth over the long run. Next, we deal with the issue of resource-based limits to long-run growth. We propose to promote technological progress which would improve the substitutability between non-renewable and renewable resources: if the elasticity of substitution between the two kinds of resources exceeds unity, production will not fall down to zero even after the non-renewable resources will have been completely depleted. Another question asked is whether it is plausible that R&D-based growth, fueled by steady increases in the world’s population, can be extended into indefinite time. We answer this question by introducing endogenous fertility choice, with population entering the utility functional multiplicatively, into an R&D-based semi-endogenous growth model. The next issue addressed here are the idea-based microfoundations of aggregate production functions. We discuss the correspondence between the shape of production functions, the direction of technical change, and the possibility of sustained endogenous growth. A broad class of production functions, nesting both the Cobb-Douglas and the CES function, is derived. Finally, we discuss the impact of the heterogeneity of innovations on long-run economic dynamics: we augment the semi-endogenous growth model with a distinction between radical and incremental innovations. Total R&D output is assumed to depend on technological opportunity which is depleted by incremental innovations but renewed by radical innovations. The dynamic interplay of the arrivals of the two types of innovations is shown to give rise to transitional oscillations.
Technological change is today central to the theory of economic growth. It is recognised as an important driver of productivity growth and the emergence of new products from which consumers derive welfare. It depends not only on the work of scientists and engineers, but also on a wider range of economic and societal factors, including institutions such as intellectual property rights and corporate governance, the operation of markets, a range of governmental policies (science and technology policy, innovation policy, macroeconomic policy,competition policy, etc.), historical specificities, etc. Given that technology is explicitly taken up in the strategies and policies of governments and firms, and new actors both in the national and international arenas become involved, understanding the nature and dynamics of technology is on demand. I anticipate that this book will decisively contribute in this regard.
This textbook covers the full range of topics and issues normally included in a course on economic growth and development. Both mainstream economic perspectives as well as the multi-paradigmatic, inter-disciplinary, and dynamic-evolutionary perspectives from heterodox economics are detailed. Economic development is viewed in terms of the long-run well-being of humanity, social stability, environmental sustainability, and just distribution of economic gains, not simply as the growth of GDP. Furthermore, this textbook explicitly recognizes the complexity of economic development by linking economic activity to our broader social and natural environments.The textbook's unique feature is its focus on the natural environment. Both the historical effects of economic development on the environment and the environmental constraints on future economic development are thoroughly discussed in two chapters on environmental issues and policies. In fact, because economic development is defined in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability, the natural environment is included in discussions throughout the book.The textbook is inter-disciplinary: knowledge from fields such as sociology, psychology, political science, economic history, and ecology is called on to enhance the economic analysis. A thorough historical account of the development of the principal paradigms of economic development is also included, and the important issues of institutional development and cultural change merit their own chapters. Two chapters on technological change holistically focus on production technologies as well as the dynamic performance of entire economic, social, and ecological systems. Also, the important relationship between economic development and globalization is presented in three chapters on international trade, international finance and investment, and immigration from both orthodox and heterodox perspectives.
The chapters in the book cover a broad range of aspects regarding the relationship between natural resource use and long-term economic development. The book surveys existing literature as well as adds to frontier research. In particular, the following topics are studied: incentives for adoption and diffusion of clean technology, resource scarcity and limits to growth, international convergence of energy intensity, and the social norms shaping resource depletion.
It gives me great pleasure to review this important book. I recommend it highly to any physicist with an interest or curiosity about this economy thing within which we operate. . . There is no excuse not to get this invaluable volume onto your bookshelf. Simon Roberts, Institute of Physics Energy Group This book addresses a very important topic, namely economic growth analysis from the angle of energy and material flows. The treatment is well balanced in terms of research and interpretation of the broader literature. The book not only contains a variety of empirical indicators, statistical analyses and insights, but also offers an unusually complete and pluralistic view on theorizing about economic growth and technological change. This results in a number of refreshing perspectives on known ideas and literatures. The text is so attractively written that I found it very difficult to stop reading. All in all, this is a very original and important contribution to the everlasting debate on growth versus environment. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, University of Barcelona, Spain and Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Would you want your great-grandchildren in 2100AD to have a 22nd-century industrial economy? If so, read this book to grasp how strongly wealth depends on energy and its efficient use. Start treating fossil energy not as continuing income, but as one-time energy capital to spend on efficiency and long-term sustainable energy production. Otherwise, your descendants will inherit a broken 20th-century economy that only worked with cheap fossil fuels. They will not be rich and they will wonder what their ancestors were thinking. John R. Mashey, PhD, former Chief Scientist, Silicon Graphics Current economic theory attributes most income growth to technical progress. However, since technical progress can neither be defined nor measured, no one really knows what policies will encourage income growth. Ayres and Warr show that access to useful work, which can be defined and measured, explain the bulk of post-1900 income changes in Japan, Britain and the USA. They see rising real prices for fossil fuel and stagnating efficiencies of converting raw energy into useful work as a threat to continued income growth. This brilliant and original work has profound policy implications for future income growth without significant improvements in energy conversion efficiency. Thomas Casten, Chairman, Recycled Energy Development LLC Following the up-and-down energy shock of 2008, Ayres and Warr offer a unique analysis critical to our economic future. They argue that useful work produced by energy and energy services is far more important to overall GDP growth than conventional economic theory assumes. Their new theory, based on extensive empirical and theoretical analysis, has important implications for economists, businessmen and policymakers for anybody concerned with our economic future. Ayres and Warr argue persuasively that economic growth is not only endogenous but has been driven for the past two centuries largely by the declining effective cost of energy. If their new theory is correct, the inevitable future rise of the real cost of energy (beyond the $147 oil price peak in July 2008), could halt economic growth in the US and other advanced countries unless we dramatically improve energy with technology. J. Paul Horne, independent international market economist The historic link between output (GDP) growth and employment has weakened. Since there is no quantitively verifiable economic theory to explain past growth, this unique book explores the fundamental relationship between thermodynamics (physical work) and economics. The authors take a realistic approach to explaining the relationship between technological progress, thermodynamic efficiency and economic growth. Their findings are a step toward the integration of neo-classical and evolutionary perspectives on endogenous economic growth, concluding in a fundam
This four-volume-set (CCIS 208, 209, 210, 211) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Applied Economics, Business and Development, ISAEBD 2011, held in Dalian, China, in August 2011. The papers address issues related to Applied Economics, Business and Development and cover various research areas including Economics, Management, Education and its Applications.
