the impact of exports on economic growth it s the market form abstarct this paper unites explanations about the growth effects from various trade characteristics proposing the market form into which a country exports as the main driver exporting into concentrated world markets oligopolies or monopolies leads to higher profit margins similar to fundamental microeconomic logic the paper develops an index measuring the average market form of a country s exports this index produces a positive and statistically significant coefficient in conventional growth regressions a one standard deviation increase is suggested to raise growth by 0 885 percentage points this result holds for numerous extensions and seems particularly important for developing economics

the futile quest for a grand explanation of long run government expenditure this paper carries out a critical reappraisal of the two contending theories purporting to explain long run government spending wagner s law and different variants of the ratchet effect we analyze data spanning from the early 19 th century until the present day in sweden and the united kingdom hence in contrast to previous studies we evaluate the validity of wagner s law and the ratchet effect hypothesis over a very long time period starting at the beginning of industrialization cointegration analysis is used to investigate the long run relationships between government expenditure and gdp focusing on sub periods and structural breaks moreover we test the ratchet effect hypothesis by estimating models which allow for asymmetric adjustment according to our main results wagner s law does not hold in the long run although the data are consistent with wagner s law between roughly 1860 and the mid 1970s this can be traced to the formation of the modern public sector including the introduction of public education health care and so forth yet wagner s law did not hold during the initial industrialization phase before 1860 and in recent periods gdp only affects the government spending share when we control for population age structure finally we find some evidence of asymmetric adjustment in the uk particularly in the post wwii period however the ratchet effect is not a general cause of the growth of government spending

the impact of government debt expenditure and taxes on aggregate investment and productivity growth in this paper we evaluate empirically the impact of fiscal policy on two key determinants of long term growth i e private investment and productivity growth we mostly focus on a panel of 20 oecd economies from 1970 to 2009 although we also present some estimates based on data for 80 developing economies our findings suggest that high public debt adversely affects both aggregate investment spending and productivity growth through distortions related to the size of the public sector we also find weak evidence of some non linear effects on productivity with government debt becoming more detrimental in advanced economies when above 85 90 of gdp

government size and growth a rejoinder in our 2011 survey of the literature in the journal of economic surveys on the effect of government size on economic growth in wealthy countries we find a relatively consistent pattern an increase in government size by 10 percentage points is associated with a 0 5 1 percentage point lower annual growth rate this conclusion is questioned by colombier in this rejoinder we present a rebuttal of colombier s argument based on a detailed scrutiny of his own statistical evidence and regression results furthermore we note that several new papers that have appeared since our original paper was published give support to our main conclusion

tax structure and growth are some taxes better than others using pooled cross sectional data from 23 oecd countries between1965 and 1990 i find evidence that the tax structure affectseconomic growth specifically the proportion of tax revenueraised by taxing personal income has a negative correlation witheconomic growth this result is robust to a rigorous sensitivityanalysis where i control for other plausible growth determinantsin a systematic manner also there is some empirical evidencethat tax progressivity measured in terms of the long run incomeelasticity of tax revenue is associated with low economicgrowth

distribution and redistribution in postindustrial democracies this paper analyzes the processes of distribution and redistribution in post industrial democracies we combine a pooled time series data base on welfare state effort and its determinants assembled by huber ragin and stephens 1997 with data on income distribution assembled in the luxembourg income survey lis archive in the case of the lis data we re calculate the micro data in order to remove the distorting influence of pensioners on pre tax pre transfer income distribution we examine the determinants of three dependent variables pre tax pre transfer income inequality post tax post transfer income inequality and the proportional reduction in inequality from pre to post tax and transfer inequality we hypothesized that pre tax pre transfer income inequality would be determined by labor market institutions union density bargaining centralization labor market conditions unemployment and economic structures post industrialism third world imports we hypothesized that the reduction in inequality would be determined by political configurations directly by left government and indirectly via their effect on welfare state generosity by left government and christian democratic government post tax and transfer income inequality was hypothesized to be a product of the combination of labor market variables and political variables the results broadly confirms our hypotheses and the overall fit is very good

corporate environmental and resource management in search of a new managerial paradigm abstract sustainable development is close to becoming the catchword of the 1990s but it is still far from being an operational concept for individual companies this paper attempts to transform the brundtlandian contradictory of sustainable development into a corporate and more operational concept as it is argued economists interest in the environment is not new whether to implement sustainable corporate environmental and resource management practices or not is no longer a real choice for industrialists today given the ultimate limitations of nature limitations that are close to being reached the implications of such a new corporate development philosophy will be far reaching however the new managerial paradigm which is outlined here challenges not only the way in which industry is run today but attacks the very bedrock on which mainstream economics is based

economics of sustainability or the sustainability of economics different paradigms this article reviews different views of neo classical and ecological economics on the sustainability of economic growth and welfare neo classical economics concludes that due to substitution and technical progress consumption can be sustained even if production depends on a natural resource that is being depleted if production depends on an essential renewable resource there is a level of consumption that can be sustained forever pollution lowers the level of consumption that can be sustained if production depends on an exhaustible resource recycling of waste is insufficient for sustaining consumption unless 100 recycling is possible sustainable economic development is possible if the resource growth potential exceeds the sum of the discount rate minus the rate of exogenous technical progress and if resource productivity is sufficiently high in addition intial levels of environmental quality a composite of pollution and natural resources and man made capital influence the possibilities for sustainable economic development if the resource stock itself affects utility or if irreversibilities occur optimal consumption and extraction are lowered ecological economics states that substitution possibilities are restricted full recycling of waste is impossible and the limited influx of solar energy poses an additional constraint on the level of production that can be sustained since the functions of the environment production factor consumer good and waste sink are intertwined this life support function poses a restriction on economic growth as well in ecological economics development is viewed as an evolutionary process with continuous feedbacks between a changing economy and environment welfare is not merely the sum of discounted individual preferences but requires environmental compatibility and the explicit collective formulation of policies regarding the conservation of species ecosystems and natural resources

trust and growth using data from u s states we find a positive relationship between trust and growth according to our results a 10 percentage point increase in trust increases the growth rate of gdp by 0 5 percentage points and the growth rate of manufacturing employment by 1 3 percentage points over a five year period our results are robust to the endogeneity between trust and growth

economics and sustainability balancing trade offs and imperatives the concept of sustainability has been increasingly invoked in scholarly and public policy debates discussion has been hampered however by uncertainty and lack of uniformity in the meaning of sustainability this paper seeks to identify some common ground among economists ecologists and environmen tal ethicists two issues seem salient require ments for intergenerational and the defi nition of social capital to be provided to future generations a concept of safe minimum standard which has received at least some recognition in the ecology philosophy and eco nomics literatures may provide the beginnings of a common ground for debate about sus tainability jel q2

private sector shrinkage and the growth of industrialized economies comment the main conclusion which emerges from the results in tables 1 3 is the extreme sensitivity of marlow s results to the countries included in the sample particularly japan to the time period and to the other variables included in the analysis this conforms with the oecd s own analysis of these data and subsequent research based on them it suggests that the underlying relationship being investigated is inherently unstable and that the estimated model leaves a considerable proportion of the variance of the dependent variable unexplained these aspects of the results are consistent with most of the other empirical work on the relationship between economic growth and the size and growth of government in industrialised economies it is to be emphasised however that the results presented here do not refute the claims that the size and growth of government have not had any detrimental impact on economic performance in general and economic growth in particular what they do point to is the absence of any simple aggregative relationships linking government size and growth to the rate of economic growth if such relationships are to be uncovered this will require a more detailed and complex investigation of the impact of government which is embedded in a more rigorously formulated structural model of the growth process

calculation of fair wage potentials along products life cycle introduction of a new midpoint impact category for social life cycle assessment abstract income and wages are among the determinant factors for the living standards and well being of workers and thus carry a certain degree of relevance for social life cycle assessment slca although fair wages have often been mentioned as a quantitative measure of societal well being a defined impact category and quantitative characterization model is missing against this background this paper aims at defining fair wage as a new midpoint impact category for slca and suggests a characterization model to calculate fair wage potentials fwps along a product s life cycle the characterization model considers the actual wage paid at each process step in comparison to a minimum living wage it furthermore relates wage to the effective working time and includes an inequality factor to account for income inequalities the characterization model was tested in a cradle to gate case study on tomatoes produced in germany to ensure its applicability results indicate potentially negative social impacts for workers employed in packaging and transport in turkey and workers in manufacturing and packaging in china in contrast low impacts resulted for the indian workers no negative impacts are expected for the german and dutch workers the midpoint category fair wage and the associated characterization model facilitate the operationalization of social impact assessment and provide companies with a practical method to quantify and evaluate their products life cycle

niche diversification in environmental ecological economics abstract this paper is devoted to the identification and comparison of the niches of neoclassical environmental economics nee and ecological economics eco it is presented in four sections section 1 argues that the existing literature does not make the differences and relations between the sister disciplines neatly transparent section 2 critically examines the antecedents of the subjects with reference to three structural dimensions such as scarcity perception problem solving orientation and range of integration section 3 collates the elements and reformulates the definitions section 4 is coda on the essay the divide between the paradigms which came to the surface during the 1960s became prominent through the growth controversy of the subsequent decade the controversy over the need for change of economic theory to cope with the growing intensity of environmental uncertainty makes the disciplines sore about each other the neoclassical paradigm comprising of elements like relative scarcity allocative approach market correction and technological optimism characterises nee the distinguishing characteristics of eco include thermodynamic irreversibility absolute scarcity economy ecosystem symbiosis biophysical approach ecological stewardship and prudent pessimism the niches are competitive and complementary in some respects and thus provide a unique example of fruitful niche diversification within environmental ecological economics we have a feeling that the economics profession can trace out the interface of the disciplines in some policy areas and raise the effectiveness of prescriptions so that this academic species diversity can serve humankind to its full potential

marx s reproduction schemes and the environment abstract ecological economists have argued that marx s reproduction schemes are self contained circular flows that downgrade the importance of natural conditions the present paper evaluates this criticism in light of both marx s methodology and his response to quesnay s tableau economique it is shown that marx follows quesnay in clearly distinguishing monetary circular flows from material throughput and that his schemes encapsulate the dependence of capitalist production on natural conditions as developed elsewhere in capital at the same time the purpose of marx s schemes is not to theorize environmental crises but to set out the basic exchanges necessary for capitalist reproduction as a material and social class process marx s analyses of capitalist environmental crises are developed at other points in capital

growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries a reply folster and henrekson european economic review 45 2001 1501 1520 argue that the more the econometric problems that are addressed the more robust the relationship between government size and economic growth appears but in failing to control for simultaneity and in ignoring issues of sample selection bias the regressions reported by folster henrekson are flawed using theoretically valid instruments we find that the estimated partial correlation between size of the public sector and economic growth is statistically insignificant and highly unstable across specifications moreover since instruments are weak all hypothesis tests are unreliable we conclude that cross country growth regressions are unlikely to come up with a reliable answer to the question of the growth effects of government spending and taxation

government size government debt and globalization this article empirically investigates the effect of globalization on government size and debt using panel heterogeneous cointegration techniques to a panel of developing and developed countries i

the origins of state capacity property rights taxation and politics economists generally assume that the state has sufficient institutional capacity to support markets and levy taxes this paper develops a framework where policy choices in market regulation and taxation are constrained by past investments in legal and fiscal capacity it studies the economic and political determinants of such investments demonstrating that legal and fiscal capacity are typically complements the results show that among other things common interest public goods such as fighting external wars as well as political stability and inclusive political institutions are conducive to building state capacity some correlations in cross country data are consistent with the theory

oil and the macroeconomy since world war ii all but one of the u s recessions since world war ii have been preceded typically with a lag of around three fourths of a year by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum this does not mean that oil shocks caused these recessions evidence is presented however that even over the period 1948 72 this correlation is statistically significant and nonspurious supporting the proposition that oil shocks were a contributing factor in at least some of the u s recessions prior to 1972 by extension energy price increases may account for much of post opec macroeconomic performance

decentralization and economic growth in europe for whom the bell tolls the effects of fiscal decentralization on economic growth are analyzed a theoretical framework is developed that builds on the relationships between government size and growth and between decentra

economic indicators of resource scarcity a critical essay abstract the theoretical arguments of the conceptual and empirical literature on economic indicators of long run resource scarcity are logically flawed if resource allocators were informed of the nature of resource scarcity their behavior and the economic indicators it generates would reflect the scarcity but if they were so informed we could simply ask them if resources were scarce if they are not informed their behavior and economic indicators are as likely to indicate their ignorance as the reality unfortunately there is no way of knowing whether they are informed or not unless we already know whether resources are scarce

making and breaking social capital the impact of welfare state institutions since the debate about the importance of social capital and civil society for the quality of democracy began scandinavia has caused problems observers have been bewildered by an allegedly paradoxical coexistence of a wealth of social capital and extensive welfare state arrangements some theorize that large welfare states make engagement in voluntary associations unnecessary making the production of social capital more difficult however empirical research shows scandinavia to have comparatively high levels of social capital to solve this paradox the authors address how the causal mechanism between variation in the design of welfare state institutions and social capital works the empirical analysis based on swedish survey data suggests that the specific design of welfare state policies matters for the production of social capital contacts with universal welfare state institutions tend to increase social trust whereas experiences with needs testing social programs undermine it the policy implic

protection of property rights and growth as political equilibria abstract this paper presents a survey of the literature on property rights and economic growth different theoretical mechanisms that relate property rights to economic development are discussed lack of protection of property rights can result in slow economic growth through different channels expropriation of private wealth corruption of civil servants excessive taxation and barriers to adoption of new technologies the origins of property rights are also considered different theories are illustrated but more attention is paid to the social conflict view and its success and limitations the second part of the paper illustrates relevant empirical works on property rights and growth

the selection principle and market failure in systems competition abstract if governments stepped in where markets failed reintroducing markets through the backdoor of systems competition will again result in market failure three models are presented which illustrate this wisdom the first is concerned with congestion prone public goods and shows that fiscal competition may be ruinous for the governments the second considers the insurance function of redistributive taxation and shows that systems competition may suffer from adverse selection the third studies the role of quality regulation and shows that systems competition may be a competition of laxity resulting in inefficiently low quality standards

limits to substitution between ecosystem services and manufactured goods and implications for social discounting this paper examines implications of limits to substitution for estimating substitutability between ecosystem services and manufactured goods and for social discounting based on a model that accounts for a subsistence requirement in the consumption of ecosystem services we provide empirical evidence on substitution elasticities we find an initial mean elasticity of substitution of two which declines over time towards complementarity we subsequently extend the theory of dual discounting by introducing a subsistence requirement the relative price of ecosystem services is non constant and grows without bound as the consumption of ecosystem services declines towards the subsistence level an application suggests that the initial discount rate for ecosystem services is more than a percentage point lower as compared to manufactured goods this difference increases by a further half percentage point over a 300 year time horizon the results underscore the importance of considering limited substitutability in long term public project appraisal

the role of thermodynamics in the study of economic and ecological systems abstract economic theory has always maintained that economic value is generated solely within the economy where it is fully distributed among the factors of production before being consumed according to this theory the economy is an isolated system that does not need flows to pass across its boundaries in support of its steady state general equilibrium from a thermodynamic point of view this idea is unacceptable according to thermodynamic theory any open system which allows flows of matter and energy to cross its boundaries is capable of maintaining itself in steady state only because it transport value from its environment to restore the value that has been consumed within the system and dissipated drawing on the analogy with thermodynamics this paper replaces the traditional systemic analog of the economy which is the closed circular flow process with the steady flow process according to this analog any efficient economy is an open system both physically and economically requiring a flow of economic value to maintain its steady state in other words an economically isolated system has to be inefficient and is bound to misallocate and overuse environmental resources whether the economy behaves as an economically isolated inefficient or open efficient system is an empirical question however if real economies are economically open and efficient and environmental resources are abused due to the economy s unrestrained material growth parts of traditional economic theory espicially those related to benefit evaluation will have to be modified policy recommendations will be affected in any case because internalization the panacea of resource misallocations cannot be more than a temporary solution instead of opening the economy internalization encloses the harmed resource and saves it by abusing excessively other environmental resources

government size and growth a survey and interpretation of the evidence a comment in contrast to the commonly held view bergh and henrekson 2011 conclude that a consensus has almost been reached on the thesis that government size is negatively correlated with economic growth in developed countries they underpin this by claiming that the only study in the survey to deviate from this consensus view i e colombier 2009 was rebutted by bergh and ohrn 2011 this comment shows that the claim by bergh and henrekson 2011 cannot be upheld because the analysis by bergh and ohrn 2011 is based on a flawed dataset the re estimation of colombier s 2009 regressions with time fixed effect does not reject his main findings moreover it is demonstrated that recent empirical evidence on the growth impact of government size in rich countries is not as unanimous as the survey by bergh and henrekson 2011 suggests thus the claim that a consensus view has been reached is premature

humans environment and economies from vicious relationships to virtuous responsibility abstract the debates questioning the meaning of growth point to a need for a more holistic understanding of human beings and of the economic actor fundamental to economic theory and practice this contribution turns to virtue ethics in order to reframe the self in more reflexive relational and environmental terms we explore the significance of understanding humans sense of responsibility that is quintessentially relational and of their capacity and need to relate to nature as well as community and society we begin by reviewing the main arguments in the thriving debate in ecological economics around what the characteristics of the human being can contribute to implement an ecologically sustainable development our aim is then to draw a link between this debate and that of virtue ethics that leads to a different understanding of the human being of what can contribute to individual wellbeing and a good life responsibility we argue is not only a value but a virtue that enables individuals to find meaning in acting responsibly towards the environment emphasising the multiple benefits that arise from framing good lives in active terms we conclude reflecting on the challenges to and implications of our proposition for government institutions particularly education

toward consilience between biology and economics the contribution of ecological economics abstract during its ten year history ecological economics has made a real difference in the way economists look at the natural world and in the way biologists look at the economy in this survey article we examine the contributions to the journal in terms of e o wilson s concept of consilience that is his argument that the methods and assumptions of any field of study should be consistent with the known and accepted facts in other disciplines in particular we examine the contributions of ecological economics to reconciling the economic theory of the consumer and producer with biophysical reality

why sweden s welfare state needed reform according to professor walter korpi the swedish economy would be in better shape if leading politicians had paid less attention to the advice from an influential group of swedish academic economists allegedly hostile to the welfare state their claim that high taxes and extensive social security programmes have strong adverse effects on aggregate economic performance rested on a politically biased reading of comparative international data in purporting to show that sweden had fallen behind other comparable countries the sclerosis diagnosis they set the stage for cutbacks in the welfare state and a major tax reform involving substantially lower marginal tax rates apart from creating inequality at a negligible gain in efficiency the very same reforms may also explain why sweden ran into a macroeconomic tailspin in the early i 990s rather than an instructive case study of the ultimate consequences of a long term obsession with income equality and social protection the exceptional economic crisis can be traced to severe macroeconomic policy blunders the views of professor korpi are quite familiar for anyone that has followed the swedish debate over the last decade supporters of the welfare state applaud professor korpi for revealing the ideological bias underlying the evidence presented in support of the sclerosis diagnosis some swedish economists rather thank of him as a modern day don quixote eager to pick a fight with imaginary villains being a swede and a professor of economics i can hardly claim the status of an impartial observer i certainly believe that harberger triangles convey information and i am convinced that most of the recently implemented reforms make sense nevertheless i believe that professor korpi raises important issues many of the accusations made against the welfare state in sweden and elsewhere rest on evidence which does not survive normal academic scrutiny in their capacity as policy advisors academic economists far from always live up to the standards of the seminar room speculation and sweeping generalisations are poor substitutes for facts and empirical investigations like professor korpi i doubt that very important insights on the harmfulness of the welfare state can be gained from comparative aggregate data over the period i970 90 swedish economic growth was below the oecd average at the same time the public sector was very large however

operationalizing sustainable development dynamic ecological economic models abstract since the mid eighties a vast literature has evolved around the concept of sustainable development it shows a wide support for changes in policy making and decision making for instance to integrate environmental interests in national and international political processes remarkably recommendations of contours and new elements of research methods and policy analysis for sustainable development are rare although this is just as essential as the renewed attention for the political dimension a clear view on how to use and change adequately existing techniques and models for sustainable development will contribute to a more satisfactory operationalization of it this paper examines the implications of ecologically sustainable economic development for integrated dynamic modelling after a concise discussion of sustainable development it is suggested that five concepts are central to it intergenerational equity the regional scale multiple use long term uncertainty and economic ecological integration the discussion of each of these issues is focused on the implications for model elements and uses thereby old ideas are reviewed and new ones are proposed the aim is not to come up with a rigid framework for dealing with sustainable development but rather to suggest which alternatives are available to deal with the central concepts although in a section on economic ecological integration general requirements for dynamic economic ecological models are mentioned explicitly in order to offer a general frame of reference these requirements are fairly general and may be taken up in ensuing discussions of the methodological aspects related to sustainable development the main conclusions are the following we view economic ecological integration in the sense of combining processes instead of one process and a variable to deal with intergenerational equity one may choose objectives various constraints or a combination of both for regional models one may consider various types of conditions on cross boundary flows and external factors of regional processes multiple use can be modelled as an intermediate stage between single resource models with a partial view and complex models with a general view sensitivity probability and scenario analyses can be used to deal partially with the various types of long term uncertainty although this remains difficult for the very important class of unexpected events or catastrophes such surprises can at best be turned into risk by scenario analyses and examination of dynamic behaviour of the system as a whole

political competition policy and growth theory and evidence from the us this paper develops a simple model to analyse how a lack of political competition may lead to policies that hinder economic growth we test the predictions of the model on panel data for the us states in these data we find robust evidence that lack of political competition in a state is associated with anti growth policies higher taxes lower capital spending and a reduced likelihood of using right to work laws we also document a strong link between low political competition and low income growth

malthus vs wordsworth perspectives on humankind nature and economy a contribution to the history and the foundations of ecological economics abstract in this paper the view of humankind and nature upon which the thinking of malthus is founded will be reflected on and contrasted with the opposed understanding of his contemporary wordsworth we show that the economic considerations of both are based decidedly on the premise of these views and that their alternative interpretations of the contemporary economy and the relationship between economy and nature may thus be explained from the comparison of malthus and wordsworth we draw conclusions for modern ecological economics identifying its malthusian understanding of nature and reflecting on the capacities and limits implied for further research we ascribe a central role in the conceptual history of ecological economics to wordsworth and present his philosophical presumptions as a fruitful alternative for ecological economics finally attention will be drawn to the principle importance of the philosophical foundations underpinning this field of research

growth effects of fiscal policies an application of robust modified m estimator in the field of economics only nonhigh quality data is usually available which can cause the widely used least square estimators lse to be biased and inefficient therefore the present study introduces the robust modified m estimator mme proposed by yohai et al 1991 in the case of growth regressions with fiscal variables it can be shown that lse is biased and inefficient whereas mme is not the robust regressions ascertain a stable positive growth effect of public infrastructure and education moreover this study shows that government size has not been detrimental to growth for oecd countries in the past no growth effects of taxation have been found so that endogenous growth theory is not corroborated in this regard consequently fiscal policies aiming at promoting growth should focus on infrastructure and education

towards an ecological economics of sustainability abstract persistent disagreement both as to the interpretation to be given to sustainability and as to the relation between ecological and economic sustainability has hindered the development of an ecological economics of sustainable resource use this paper identifies the main concepts of sustainability deriving from the two disciplines in order to explore the difference implied by an ecological approach to the problem it is argued that present economic and ecological approaches are largely disjoint and that they address basically different phenomena by combining the efficiency requirements of what is usually thought of as economic sustainability with the stability requirements of an ecological approach it is shown that an intertemporally efficient allocation of resources that satisfies the conditions for constant levels of consumption is not necessary to assure ecological sustainability ecological sustainability requires that the allocation of economic resources should not result in the instability of the economy environment system as a whole

the approach of ecological economics this paper discusses the major tenets of ecological economics including value pluralism methodological pluralism and multi criteria policy assessment ecological economics offers viable alternatives to the theoretical foundations and policy recommendations of neoclassical welfare economics a revolution in neoclassical economics is currently taking place and the core assumptions of welfare economics are being replaced with more realistic models of consumer and firm behaviour this paper argues that these new theoretical and empirical findings are largely ignored in applied work and policy applications in environmental economics as the only heterodox school of economics focusing on the human economy both as a social system and as one imbedded in the biophysical universe and thus both holistic and scientifically based ecological economics is poised to play a leading role in recasting the scope and method of economic science

quantification of social equity in life cycle assessment for increased sustainable production of sanitary products in uganda abstract assessing the life cycle of a specific sanitary pad makapads in uganda defines unique and vital measurements of social equity especially for women laborers a combined approach of social life cycle assessment slca and environmental life cycle assessment elca has been utilized to determine sanitary pads social equity and environmental impacts the development of the makapads product is an example of a design by africans for africans whereas libresse is an example of a european designed product used by africans the elca and slca of both libresse pads and makapads include the stages of raw material extraction energy production assembly transport to or within uganda and incineration and the contextualized economic costs of sanitary pads and income generation from the makapads factories two slca quantifiable characteristics that distinguish makapads from imported pads developed here are affordability and manufacturing wage impacts we conclude first from the elca that the majority of environmental impacts for makapads are at least half of those of the librese product and second from the slca that there are significant social benefits to local design and manufacturing of products for girls and women our recommendation is that sub saharan african countries should encourage policies that support local design and manufacturing of sustainable products rather than being reliant on imported products which can have higher environmental impacts and lower social equity benefits

ecological economics as a policy science rhetoric or commitment towards an improved decision making process on sustainability abstract with sustainability issues currently attracting increasing political and policy attention this paper examines the impact of the rise of ecological economics in the policy world and its potential influence on the decision making process this study emphasises that ecological economics development is coevolved with and modified to fit specific social economic political and cultural contexts as a policy science ecological economics is context sensitive and action oriented explaining why it is so and what to do about it has become imperative for ecological economists this paper attempts to address the questions such as what are the macroeconomic conditions and political processes that make the formulation and implementation of ecological economic policy possible how should this alternative social reality engage with the dominant decision making process does ecological economics provide the necessary means for prescribing policy measures to achieve sustainable development endeavouring to understand these dimensions of ecological economics has been a dynamic social process and understanding this complex process might provide an opportunity to bridge the divide between policy rhetoric and reality in practice rather than maintain the status quo in order to achieve an improved decision making process on sustainability it highlights the imperative to explicitly study the institutional setting through which sustainable development policy discourse is mediated

production and environmental resources a prelude to an evolutionary framework the paper advances a framework to study the evolution of technology and institutions it is based on two simple tenets first the quality and quantity of environmental resources are defined and constrained by the regime of technology and institutions second the character and extent of innovations are informed and limited by the regime as well the framework is contrasted with neoclassical and ecological economics while the framework assimilates ideas from both paradigms it departs from them by stressing the importance of the technological institutional regime tir the two views ignore in different ways the significance of tir 46 the neoclassical program conceives the flow of innovations as tir independent while the ecological agenda regards the fund of resources as tir independent 1 consequently both camps fail to provide an endogenous account of the observed punctuated character of the evolution of tir neoclassical economists maintain that as a resource depletes its price rises which induces switching to a cheaper one encourages exploration or spurs invention harold barnett and chandler morse 7 11 state that nature imposes particular scarcities not an inescapable general scarcity the responses to environmental resource limitation are supposedly singular activities stripped from any underpinning regime the neoclassical disregard of tir heuristically resembles the fable of marie antoinette s folly in response to the scarcity of bread at the eve of the french revolution she advised according to legend buying cake instead ecological economists offer a different view of resource limits 48 for herman daly 21 8 nature really does impose an inescapable general scarcity while neoclassical economists emphasize relative limitation scarcity pricing ecological economists stress malthusian general limitation for ecological economists substitution can solve relative allocation but cannot solve general limitation general limitation can be avoided only if economic activity proceeded within certain boundaries or as put by martin o connor 69 within appropriate cyclical structure of resource transformations under the motto sustainable development a low pace production activity supposedly enables a population to replicate indefinitely ecological economists conceive

regulation and distrust in a cross section of countries government regulation is strongly negatively correlated with social capital we document this correlation and present a model explaining it in the model distrust creates public demand for regulation while regulation in turn discourages social capital accumulation leading to multiple equilibria a key implication of the model is that individuals in low trust countries want more government intervention even though the government is corrupt we test this and other implications of the model using country and individual level data on social capital and beliefs about government s role as well as on changes in beliefs and in trust during the transition from socialism

solutions to the crisis the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy alternatives to the capitalist growth economy from an ecofeminist economics perspective this article deals with three approaches conceived as alternative approaches to the capitalist growth economy the green new deal degrowth and the solidarity economy ecofeminist economics has much to offer to each of these approaches but these contributions remain as of yet unrealized the green new deal largely represents the green economy which holds economic success as contingent upon the ecological restructuring of industrial production the degrowth approach more fundamentally raises questions concerning the relationship between material prosperity and individual and social well being the principles of the solidarity economy involve the immediate implementation of the principles of self determination and cooperation none of these approaches takes into account the claims of ecofeminist economics and none of them clearly view gender equity as essential to economic change the three approaches are however deeply gendered in the sense that they are implicitly based on assumptions concerning women s labor in the sphere of social reproduction this article demonstrates how each approach can be improved upon by the integration of ecofeminist economic principles in order to achieve economic change that also meets claims for gender equity

some issues in agrarian and ecological economics in memory of georgescu roegen abstract ecological critics of economics have argued for over one hundred years that economists should study the flow of energy and materials in the economy the services nature offers to the human economy cannot be adequately valued in the accounting system of neoclassical environmental and resource economics today s ecological economics does not only critizice it also tries to provide physical indicators in order to judge whether the economy is ecologically sustainable beyond its decisive role in strengthening such ecological economics georgescu roegen s work currently still holds sway in two additional fields consumption theory as analysed by gowdy 1993 and agrarian economics are there relations between such fields of study and ecological economics in this article i shall first focus on the agrarian question and then on intra and inter generational ecological distribution

feminism ecology and the philosophy of economics abstract the contemporary discipline of economics pays little heed to either the natural environment or to the work of women a review of the literature on the historical development of western concepts of self and science shows that this is not coincidental rather than suggesting that ecological economics reinforce the identification of women with nature however feminist thought suggests that dualistic thinking about men and women humans and nature can be should be replaced with a fuller picture of human identity and knowledge

does urbanization mean bigger governments this paper proposes urbanization as a determinant of government size as people move to cities their demand for a more de ned set of regulations but also for basic health education and income standards rises our theoretical framework determines how the regional distribution of the population a ects government size we test this theory on panel data of 175 countries from 1960 to 2010 and two state level samples from colombia and germany results demonstrate a strong positive e ect from urbanization on government spending with a 1 percent increase in the amount of urban citizens leading to a 0 2 percent rise in public expenditure our ndings indicate that public sectors may become more important as worldwide urbanization is progressing this result underlines why government e ectiveness and the quality of public goods provision will be even more important in the future

legitimacy and the cost of government while previous research documents a negative relationship between government size and economic growth suggesting an economic cost of big government a given government size generally affects growth differently in different countries as a possible explanation of this differential effect we explore whether government legitimacy measured by satisfaction with the way democracy works influences how a certain government size affects growth on the positive side a government perceived as legitimate may get away with being big since legitimacy can affect behavioral response to and therefore the economic growth cost of taxation and government expenditures on the negative side perceived legitimacy may make voters less prone to acquire information which in turn facilitates interest group oriented or populist policies that harm growth a panel data analysis of up to 30 developed countries in which two different measures of the size of government are interacted with government legitimacy reveals that perceived legitimacy exacerbates a negative growth effect of government size in the long run this could be interpreted as governments taking advantage of being regarded as legitimate in order to secure short term support at a long term cost to the economy

openness country size and government abstract this paper shows that smaller countries have a larger share of public consumption in gdp and are also more open to trade these empirical observations are consistent with recent theoretical models explaining country formation and break up and may account for the observed positive empirical relationship between trade openness and government size

between a rock and a soft place ecological and feminist economics in policy debates abstract the field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand and discussions of normative values and visions for society on the other using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative hardness and softness of these two sides this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique between space in order to better inform policy the current crisis of global climate change it is argued requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement while ecological thinkers need to re examine beliefs about markets and profit

how robust is the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth using various indicators for economic freedom it is shown that increases in economic freedom are robustly related to economic growth this conclusion holds even if the impact of outlying observations is taken into account the level of economic freedom is not related to growth

the economic consequences of political donation limits the economic consequences of limits on political donations depend on the degree of political competition donors who are ideologically aligned with candidates decide how much to contribute to their own candidate they may benefit from rent seeking by their own candidate but dislike rent seeking by the opposition increased rent seeking by politicians thus generates campaign contributions for themselves but also mobilizes donations to the opposing candidate potentially to a greater extent this latter effect acts as a deterrent to rent seeking when contributions finance electoral campaigns and positively affect election chances when political competition is low incumbent donors outnumber opposition donors and limits reduce rent seeking when political competition is high donors are equalized and laissez faire reduces rent seeking consistent with these hypotheses data from the us states suggest that limits are associated with better policies and stronger growth performance at low levels of political competition whilst laissez faire is preferred when political competition is high

low climate stabilisation under diverse growth and convergence scenarios abstract in the last decade a number of papers have analysed the consequences of achieving the greenhouse gas concentration levels necessary to maintain global temperature increases below 2 c above preindustrial levels most models and scenarios assume that future trends in global gdp will be similar to the growth experienced in the past century which would imply multiplying current output by about 19 times in the 21st century however natural resource and environmental constraints suggest that future global economic growth may not be so high furthermore the environmental implications of such growth depend on how it is distributed across countries this paper studies the implications on ghg abatement policies of low global gdp growth and high convergence levels in gdp per capita across countries a partial equilibrium model poles of the world s energy system is used to provide detailed projections up to 2050 for the different regions of the world the results suggest that while low stabilisation could be technically feasible and economically viable for the world in all the scenarios considered it is more likely to occur with more modest global growth however that will imply higher global abatement costs relative to gdp convergence in living standards on the other hand places greater pressures in terms of the required reduction in emissions in general we find that there are major differences between regions in terms of the size and the timing of abatement costs and economic impact

changing concepts of land in economic theory from single to multi disciplinary approaches abstract the role of land in economic theory is surveyed both from a conceptual and historical perspective land has been incorporated in economic theories in various ways originally land used by agriculture was the main motivation for an economic treatment of land this was gradually extended with various other land use categories neoclassical economic theory gave less attention to land use generally regarding land as a production factor of relatively little importance nevertheless specialized sub fields within economics such as regional and urban economics met the demand for explicit spatial analysis including land use considerations attention for environmental and resource problems has stimulated new perspectives on and conceptualizations of land in economic analysis this involves the interaction with other disciplines as well as the use of spatially disaggregated methods of analysis awareness of the richness of ideas on land in economic theory can contribute to enhanced environmental research

the shifting scully curve international evidence from 1871 to 2016 scully curves estimating growth maximizing public sector size are constructed using panel data covering 17 industrialized nations from 1870 2016 results suggest that government expenditure to gdp

institutions transaction costs and economic growth this essay develops a theoretical framework which explores the historical obstacles to economic growth these obstacles are examined in the context of the political economic institutional framework of economies in history and consequent transaction costs that determine economic performance and growth the essay concludes with specific suggestions for the study of economic growth

on the ideological foundations of environmental policy abstract this paper is an investigation into the philosophies of science inherent in the development of two schools of thought in environmental economics neoclassical and steady state analysis it attempts to gain clearer insight into the direction of inquiry and the policy options of each by contrasting their perspective metaeconomic structures the sets of first principles shaping theoretical development the ontology of steady state analysis while accepting the general principle of rationality differs from neoclassicism by including the ecological interaction of people with nature as an element of spicies being the cosmology of the two schools differs in the steady statists take the laws of thermodynamics and the principle of biospheric assimilation of first principles questions of absolute scarcity take primacy over the neoclassical focus on problems of relative scarcity in policy analysis consequently steady state theorists view the environment problem in its global dimensions over a longer time continuum the result is that steady state policy prescriptions are not necessarily market bound and may transcend the intstitutional arrangements common in western capitalist societies

sustainable development in a post brundtland world not yet two decades after the publication of our common future the world s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly nonetheless we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development sd as guiding institutional principle as concrete policy goal and as focus of political struggle remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global order yet how sd is conceptualized and practiced hinges crucially on the willingness of scholars and practitioners to embrace a plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of development and efforts to open up a continuum of local to global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability embracing pluralism provides a way out of the ideological and epistemological straightjackets that deter more cohesive and politically effective interpretations of sd using pluralism as a starting point for the analysis and normative construction of sustainable development we pay particular attention to how an amalgam of ideas from recent work in ecological economics political ecology and the development as freedom literature might advance the sd debate beyond its post brundtland quagmire enhanced levels of ecological degradation vast inequalities in economic opportunities both within and across societies and a fractured set of institutional arrangements for global environmental governance all represent seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a move towards sustainability while these obstacles are significant we suggest how they might be overcome through a reinvigorated set of notions and practices associated with sustainable development one that explicitly examines the linkages between sustainability policies and sustainability politics

relative and absolute scarcity of nature assessing the roles of economics and ecology for biodiversity conservation abstract our aim in this essay is to identify and analyze some of the difficulties with interdisciplinary integration of economic and ecological contributions to the study of biodiversity loss we develop our analysis from a widely accepted definition of economics which is based on the concept of scarcity taking a closer look at this notion we find that economics actually limits itself to a very particular aspect of scarcity which we denote as relative scarcity we describe in what respect the economic approach towards biodiversity is based on this notion and also reflect on the specific understanding of the relation of humans and nature behind the economic approach we then turn to absolute scarcity as another notion of scarcity and show that this is not within the scope of economics but has been a theme of ecology and ecological economics we describe in which way ecological and ecological economic approaches towards biodiversity are based on the idea of absolute scarcity and also reflect on the specific understanding of the human nature relationship behind this notion of scarcity against this background we discuss the roles of economics and ecology for nature conservation we conclude that the interdisciplinary integration of ecology and economics requires a philosophical underpinning and suggest a framework for further research

historical roots for ecological economics biophysical versus allocative approaches abstract a number of economists today are aware that the results of their science are more or less at variance with concrete fact and are alive to the necessity of perfecting it they go wrong rather in their choice of means to that end they try obstinately to get from their science alone the materials they know are needed for a closer approximation to fact whereas they should resort to other sciences and go into them thoroughly not just incidentally for their bearing on the given economic problem until economic science is much farther advanced economic principles are less important to the economists than the reciprocal bearings of the results of economics and the results of the other social sciences many economists are paying no attention to such interrelations for mastery of them is a long and fatiguing task requiring an extensive knowledge of facts whereas anyone with a little imagination a pen and a few reams of paper can relieve himself of a chat on principles pareto 1935 para 2022

government expenditure and economic growth a cross country study this paper examines the relationship between the share of government consumption expenditure in gdp and the rate of growth of real per capita gdp the work of the u n international comparison project has recently made available new estimates for over 100 countries of both per capita gdp and the share of government consumption these new estimates are based on direct price comparisons rather than exchange rate conversions as a result the statistics for different countries are more comparable and cross country studies will be more reliable

government size and growth accounting for economic freedom and globalization we examine the relationship between government size and economic growth controlling for economic freedom and globalization and using bayesian averaging over classical estimates in a panel of rich countries

government size and growth a survey and interpretation of the evidence the literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings this conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied an alternative approach of limiting the focus to studies of the relationship in rich countries measuring government size as total taxes or total expenditure relative to gdp and relying on panel data estimations with variation over time reveals a more consistent picture the most recent studies find a significant negative correlation an increase in government size by 10 percentage points is associated with a 0 5 to 1 percent lower annual growth rate we discuss efforts to make sense of this correlation and note several pitfalls involved in giving it a causal interpretation against this background we discuss two explanations of why several countries with high taxes seem able to enjoy above average growth one hypothesis is that countries with higher social trust levels are able to develop larger government sectors without harming the economy another explanation is that countries with large governments compensate for high taxes and spending by implementing market friendly policies in other areas both explanations are supported by ongoing research

limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption a neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics abstract there are many methodological approaches within ecological economics one of the principal modes of analysis is a modified version of the standard neoclassical model this paper examines the parallels which emerge between the ideas of some ecological economists concerning production and the ideas of others concerning consumption when these ideas are interpreted in the neoclassical paradigm it is well known that ecological economics is characterized by arguments concerning limits to substitution between inputs energy natural capital etc vs manufactured capital labor etc in production and the implications these have for sustainability however various authors have also expressed concerns regarding limits to substitution in consumption either between environmental assets and other goods or between basic needs commodities and other goods though the specific reasons for non substitution are different in the production and consumption cases the underlying theme is that individual commodities and other inputs have unique physical or other properties which make them poor substitutes ideas about irreversibility in production and economic development are also prominent in ecological economics likewise many authors have argued for similar irreversibilities in consumption behavior in analogy to the term technological change i coin the term preferential change to describe these phenomena the linking themes in this case are that the economy environment system is evolutionary in character and that external effects intended and unintended consequences of actions or processes imposed on other parties or resources are all pervasive

reflections of an applied welfare economist presidential address presented at the annual meeting of the association of environmental and resource economists september 6 1980 denver colorado

estimates of the genuine progress indicator gpi for vermont chittenden county and burlington from 1950 to 2000 the genuine progress indicator gpi a version of the index of sustainable economic welfare isew is a significantly more comprehensive approach to assessing economic progress than conventional measures like gross domestic product gdp gpi adjusts for income distribution effects the value of household and volunteer work costs of mobility and pollution and the depletion of social and natural capital isew or gpi have been estimated for several countries around the world and a few canadian provinces but we report here on the first multi scale application at the city county and state levels in vermont usa we show that it is feasible to apply the gpi approach at these smaller scales and to compare across scales and with the national average data limitations and problems still exist but potential solutions to these problems also exist all three vermont scales had significantly higher gpi per capita since 1980 than the national average indicating the major differences that can exist within countries the gpi per capita for all vermont scales was similar to the national average in the 1950 1980 period but more than twice the national average by 2000 the main factors explaining this difference had to do with vermont s much better environmental performance than the national average in the post 1980 period d 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved