managing without growth abstract there are three main arguments why developed countries should consider managing without growth 1 continued economic growth worldwide is not an option owing to environmental and resource constraints and so developed countries should leave room for growth in developing countries where the benefits of growth are evident 2 in developed countries growth has become uneconomic in the sense that it detracts more from well being than it adds and 3 economic growth in developed countries is neither necessary nor sufficient for meeting specific policy objectives such as full employment no poverty and protection of the environment this paper explores various growth scenarios for canada over the medium range to 2020 using lowgrow a dynamic simulation model after describing lowgrow a scenario is presented that shows conditions under which the rate of unemployment in canada could be reduced to historically low levels poverty eliminated and greenhouse gas emissions reduced to comply with canada s commitment under the kyoto protocol without relying on economic growth this is not to say that zero growth should itself become a policy objective rather that the dependence on and defence of economic growth should not be an obstacle to fulfilling more specific welfare enhancing objectives of full employment eliminating poverty and protecting the environment the paper concludes with some policy implications for managing without growth followed by an annex which provides a technical description of lowgrow

drivers for the use of materials across countries abstract this paper analyses drivers for resource use and material productivity across countries this is not only relevant in light of soaring raw material prices but also because eu policies such as the thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources com 2005 670 the eu raw materials initiative com 2008 699 and various similar policies internationally seek to better manage materials along their life cycle and across economies in order to better understand the system dynamics of material use our paper applies methodologies of material flow analysis and regression analysis to identify the major drivers for resource use and decoupling from gdp drivers are understood as those factors that exert influence on human activities to use resources a panel data set is taken for the european union for the years 1980 2000 eu 15 and 1992 2000 eu 25 the main drivers of resource use were found to be energy efficiency new dwellings and roads construction activities shortcomings of the methodology are also discussed

fossil resource trade balances emerging trends for the uk abstract the aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which the uk can be classified as a net importer of fossil resources and a creator of pollution havens abroad between 1968 and 2000 using input output techniques and a derived resource flow classification system both the physical trade balance ptb and pollution trade balance utb associated with fossil resource use are computed the ptb shows that between 1968 and the early 1980 s the uk is presented as a net importer of direct fossil resource flows between 1984 and 2000 the uk is identified as a net exporter of direct fossil resources these trends are primarily explained by the uk s discovery and commercial production of north sea oil and gas fields in the late 1970s on the other hand the utb shows that over the whole period the indirect used flows attributable to the uk s exports are higher than those attributable to its imports these findings suggest that the uk did not create pollution havens abroad from the use of fossil resources between 1968 and 2000 however it is noticeable in both cases that from 1995 the uk s position as a net exporter has been decreasing considerably maturing north sea oil and gas fields set against increasing demands for fossil fuels and imported goods is signalling a return to the uk s pre 1984 dependence on direct imported fossil resources and the possible creation of pollution havens abroad knowledge of these trends contributes to the evidence base for the uk s changing import and export structure and the potential environmental repercussions at home and abroad

the metabolic transition of a planned economy material flows in the ussr and the russian federation 1900 to 2010 abstract the study of long term historical trends in material flows has gained some prominence in ecological economics since the first studies for austria and the united kingdom were published as part of a special section in 2002 this research expands the existing knowledgebase by presenting material flows for the russian federation and its predecessor states employing a standard accounting framework the study of material flows for the russian federation provides an interesting and unique case of a planned economy and its transition to a market based form of economic organization we show that in spite of considerable differences in the physical economy the ussr developed material use patterns similar to that of western industrialized economies lower levels of consumption were more than outweighed by inefficient production the transition towards a market economy drove rapid improvements in resource productivity but also growth in metabolic rates the results indicate that the transition to an industrial metabolic profile proceeds largely irrespective of economic and political conditions an improved understanding of the evolution of socio economic systems and the material flows that fuel them is increasingly relevant for designing new systems of production and consumption and facilitating a transition towards a more sustainable industrial metabolism

material use and material efficiency in latin america and the caribbean different world regions have followed very different trajectories for natural resources use over the recent decades latin america has pursued a development path based largely on exports of primary resources adopting this path has characteristic environmental and social impacts in this paper we provide the first broad based estimate of material use and material efficiency for the region beginning in 1970 and extending to the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 the results show a region with rapidly growing primary materials consumption which is simultaneously becoming less efficient at converting those resources into national income using an ipat framework we found that population growth and rising per capita incomes made comparable contributions to growing material use while technological change as reflected in material intensity did not moderate consumption increasing materials intensity observed for the region as a whole is also observed for most individual countries this contrasts with some other world regions and implies that many countries in latin america and the caribbean will confront higher environmental pressures than expected when expanding their extractive industries to take advantage of new demand from other world regions while simultaneously supplying the requirements for their own domestic industrial transformations and urbanization

long term changes in social metabolism and land use in czechoslovakia 1830 2000 an energy transition under changing political regimes abstract industrialisation goes along with sweeping changes in society s interrelations with its environment the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society leads to fundamentally new patterns in social metabolism a process which has been described as socio metabolic transition this paper investigates this transition for the case of the current czech and slovak republics and presents a dataset on the development of key variables related to social metabolism during the last 170 years the dataset includes time series data on the extraction of biomass and fossil fuels energy consumption and land use combining data on bohemia and moravia 1830 1915 with data on czechoslovakia 1918 1992 and the czech and slovak republics 1993 2002 the study covers a period of consecutive political and institutional changes it includes the feudal regime of the late period of the habsburg empire and its disintegration with wwi the short period of the czechoslovak republic in the interwar period the era of a planned economy under a communist regime the collapse of this regime and the subsequent turn towards a market economy and european integration in the 1990s the period was characterized by economic and physical growth it saw a doubling of population and a growth in gdp by a factor 20 domestic energy consumption dec increased by a factor 10 and the share of biomass in dec declined from more than 98 to less than 20 all in all the observed changes closely resemble the characteristic path of the socio metabolic transition as observed in other western european economies major political and economic changes did not result in fundamental alterations of the socio metabolic transition until the mid 20th century the communist era 1945 1989 was characterized by rapid physical growth and changes in the energy and land use system very similar to those of other western european economies in the same period however leading to dec values substantially higher than those of other european countries at around 300 gj cap in the mid 1980s the disturbances caused by the velvet revolution resulted in short term turbulences in social metabolism and structural adaptations and around the year 2000 the czech and slovak republics show biophysical features very similar to those of other western european countries

a household s burden the embodied resource use of household equipment in germany the paper describes patterns of resource use related to german households equipment using cluster analysis and material flow accounting data on socio demographic characteristics and expenditures on fuel electricity and household equipment allow for a differentiation of seven different household types the corresponding resource use expressed in material footprint per person and year is calculated based on cradle to gate material flows of average household goods and the related household energy use our results show that patterns of resource use are mainly driven by the use of fuel and electricity and the ownership of cars the quantified material footprints correlate to social status and are also linked to city size age and household size affluent established and or younger families living in rural areas typically show the highest amounts of durables and expenditures on non durables thus exhibiting the highest use of natural resources

immigrant earnings growth selection bias or real progress we use longitudinal tax data linked to immigrant landing records to study the effect of selective attrition on the estimated earnings assimilation of immigrants to canada contrary to findings in the existing international literature we show that the immigrant native earnings gap closes at the same pace in longitudinal and cross sectional data low earning immigrants are likely to leave the cross sectional samples over time but the same is true for the native born our study suggests that immigrants to canada have labour market participation dynamics similar to those of the native born

international comparison of resource use and its relation to economic growth the development of total material requirement direct material inputs and hidden flows and the structure of tmr abstract resource flows constitute the materials basis of the economy at the same time they carry and induce an environmental burden associated with resource extraction and the subsequent material flows and stocks which finally end up as waste and emissions a reduction of this material throughput and the related impacts would require a reduction of resource inputs and breaking the link between resource consumption and economic growth would require an increase in resource productivity material flow analysis mfa can be used to quantify resource flows and indicate resource productivity in this article we study the available empirical evidence on the actual de linkage of material resource use and economic growth we compare resource use with respect to total material requirement tmr and direct material input dmi for 11 and 26 countries respectively and the european union eu 15 the dynamics of tmr as well as of the main components are analysed in relation to economic growth in order to show whether there is a decoupling relative or absolute from gdp and a change of the metabolic structure in the course of economic development dmi cap so far only decoupled from gdp cap in relative terms that is in most countries it reached a rather constant level but with the exception of czech republic showed no absolute decline yet tmr cap was reduced in two high income countries and one low income country due to political influence changes in tmr were more influenced by hidden flows hf than by dmi we analyse the dynamics of the structure and composition of tmr in the course of economic development in general the economic development of industrial countries was accompanied by a shift from domestic to foreign resource extraction different relations can be discovered for the share of biomass fossil fuel resources construction resources and metals and industrial minerals

canadian economics research on immigration through the lens of theories of justice we assess the current state of knowledge in the economics of immigration and consider how economic theories of knowledge can be used to further the goal of developing a just immigration policy in the process we highlight the contributions of economists working in canada and canadian economists internationally in furthering our understanding of this important research area we identify research gaps such as the need for more research on the underlying causes of the poor returns to foreign work experience for immigrants from non traditional source countries and the effect of immigrants on stimulating innovation more research is also needed on the implications of temporary foreign worker tfw programs and the growing importance of employers in immigrant selection systems la recherche canadienne en economie de l immigration a travers la lentille des theories de la justice on jauge l etat present des connaissances en economie de l immigration et on examine comment les theories economiques de la connaissance peuvent etre utiles dans la poursuite d un objectif qui serait de mettre en place une politique d immigration juste dans ce processus on souligne les contributions des economistes travaillant au canada a notre comprehension de ce chantier de recherche on identifie certaines zones d ombre comme la recherche pour comprendre les causes sous jacentes aux pauvres rendements de l experience de travail des immigrants en provenance des pays qui ne sont pas des sources d immigration traditionnelles et celle pour comprendre les effets des immigrants sur la stimulation de l innovation il faudra aussi davantage de recherches sur les implications des programmes pour attirer et accueillir les travailleurs etrangers temporairement et sur l importance croissante des employeurs dans les systemes de selection d immigrants

increased ecoefficiency and gross rebound effect evidence from usa and six european countries 1960 2002 despite increased efficiency in the use of natural resources the use of these resources continues to increase in most societies this paper examines the discrepancy between the potential decrease of use of natural resources as an effect of increased efficiency and actual use during the period 1960 2002 this difference was found to grow faster in the usa than the mean for six west european countries possible reasons for this difference between the two regions are analysed to reduce the anthropogenic flows of energy and material and the consequent deleterious effects on the biosphere it will become necessary to adapt consumption to degree of efficiency in the use of natural resources based on the comparison between the two regions some economic aspects of this issue are discussed

resource consumption drivers and pathways to reduction economy policy and lifestyle impact on material flows at the national and urban scale an analysis of material flows that also considers economic and social indicators has been performed at the national sweden and urban scale stockholm and gothenburg to study the dynamics of resource use during the last two decades a summary of policies related to resource consumption implemented at the eu national and local scale is presented and their probable effects discussed based on empirical evidence the resource consumption trends indicate that the implemented policies have failed to bring significant reductions in resource and energy throughput resource consumption has increased both in sweden as a whole and in the studied cities moreover the consumption of construction materials and electronics has grown exponentially even when normalized by population the few success stories are the absolute reduction in fossil fuel consumption achieved in stockholm building energy reduction by halve and complete abolishment of oil as the heating fuel in sweden the lifestyle characteristics that have an impact on resource consumption include high income car ownership large residential floor space social movements and trends related to dietary choices the consumption of electronics textiles and cosmetic products was shown to have increased considerably the same quantities of food are consumed but the diet has changed waste generation by far outpaces improvements in recycling in recycling waste to energy is growing faster than material recycling which impedes the development of a circular economy the main limitation of the policies implemented to date is that they only address efficiency of use but do nothing to reduce the demand for resources in addition efforts have so far been restricted to energy consumption the reality is that we must urgently reduce the consumption of all resources not just fossil fuels we call for greater concern and more action towards reducing nonfuel resource consumption

physical and monetary input output analysis what makes the difference abstract a recent paper in which embodied land appropriation of exports was calculated using a physical input output model ecological economics 44 2003 137 151 initiated a discussion in this journal concerning the conceptual differences between input output models using a coefficient matrix based on physical input output tables piots in a single unit of mass and input output models using a coefficient matrix based on monetary input output tables miots extended by a coefficient vector of physical factor inputs per unit of output in this contribution we argue that the conceptual core of the discrepancies found when comparing outcomes obtained using physical vs monetary input output models lies in the assumptions regarding unit prices and not in the treatment of waste as has been claimed ecological economics 48 2004 9 17 we first show that a basic static input output model with the coefficient matrix derived from a monetary input output table is equivalent to one where the coefficient matrix is derived from an input output table in physical units provided that the assumption of unique sectoral prices is satisfied we then illustrate that the input output tables that were used in the original publication do not satisfy the assumption of homogenous sectoral prices even after the inconsistent treatment of waste in the piot is corrected we show that substantially different results from the physical and the monetary models in fact remain finally we identify and discuss possible reasons for the observed differences in sectoral prices faced by different purchasing sectors and draw conclusions for the future development of applied physical input output analysis

decoupling analysis and environmental kuznets curve modelling of provincial level co2 emissions and economic growth in china a case study abstract guangdong is one of the most representative provinces of china in terms of reflecting how the provincial level co2 emissions dynamically evolve with economic development during the process of industrialisation and urbanisation the present study combines decoupling analysis with environmental kuznets curve ekc modelling to systematically explore the interactions between co2 emissions and economic growth in guangdong from the short to long terms aiming to provide the referential significance of low carbon development to other chinese provinces empirical results indicate that co2 economy interactions in guangdong dynamically changed with time performing an effect of expansive weak decoupling during 1995 2014 and having a potential to achieve a strong decoupling in the long run the decoupling states of various sectors and their contributions to the provincial overall decoupling differed greatly and varied by time and household and service sectors played increasingly important roles overall the decoupling effect of provincial co2 emissions is distinctly affected by the stage of industrialisation and urbanisation renewable energy utilisation as well as low carbon technical progress therefore promoting co2 economy decoupling at the provincial level should be specific to the feature and development reality of various provinces

ordinary least squares and sample selection models of health care demand monte carlo comparison this article examines alternative econometric models for health care demand estimation the analysis compares the rand health insurance study two part model with sample selection model estimators in a monte carlo simulation experiment designed to approximate individual level health care demand conditions the underlying variable distributions are taken from cross sectional data for a swiss 1981 population survey three sets of error distribution assumptions are examined bivariate normal normal logistic and cauchy despite theoretical concerns with the two part model it outperforms the sample selection model in terms of mean squared error of parameter estimate

china s natural gas consumption peak and factors analysis a regional perspective abstract china s natural gas consumption usually accounts for a small proportion of total energy consumption but it has increased rapidly in recent years china has a vast territory and the level of economic development varies significantly across regions in this paper a panel unit root and heterogeneous panel cointegration methods are applied to investigate the natural gas consumption of 30 provinces in mainland china the influencing factors of natural gas consumption are also investigated from a long term point of view china s per capita natural gas consumption seems to fit the energy kuznets curve which implies that the current rapid growth rate of natural gas consumption would not be sustained in the long term there is a peak at 200 450 cubic meters which is about 2 4 times the current consumption per capita of china and about 7 16 of russia the specific peak consumption level and peak year depend on the speed of economic development and the pace of pipeline network development in summary gas population rate plays a more important role in gas consumption in the long run and the impact of gdp weakens the potential of gas consumption of the different regions differs greatly

towards a consensus on the circular economy abstract the growing importance of the concept of the circular economy as a way to attain sustainable development has encouraged scholars to propose different ways to understand it given the large number of studies done on the circular economy their differing approaches and their multiple applications this paper attempts to propose a consensus view of the basic notions of the circular economy framework and highlight its relationship with eco innovation to that end this study carried out a systematic literature review that resulted in four main outputs a knowledge map of the circular economy an analysis of the main notions of the concept principles and determinants of a circular economy finally this study brings to light some remarkable examples of eco innovations developed for implementation in the circular economy

allocation distribution and scale towards an economics that is efficient just and sustainable abstract the practical policy of issuing tradeable permits for depletion and pollution requires for its implementation the clear separation of the three basic economic goals of efficient allocation equitable distribution and sustainable scale economic theory needs to catch up with policy in recognizing that scale issues cannot be reduced to either allocation or distribution

a two part model of treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia and the impact of innovation benign prostatic hyperplasia bphs affects more than half of men who are at least 60 years old transurethral resection of the prostate turp is the most common treatment this article estimates the average costs of providing a turp to a patient that chooses the procedure and the expected cost of a turp irrespective of the actual treatment decision it utilizes a modified two part model it first estimates the likelihood of receiving the turp given a bph diagnosis using a logit regression the second step is to estimate the log of turp cost for the population that actually received the procedure for the turp decision data were extracted from the national health interview survey nhis 1986 1994 on 502 men with a diagnosis of bph for the cost model hcia discharge abstract data were used from five states on 26640 men who actually received a turp in 1994 turp was identified via cpt codes in the nhis data the cost of turp was constructed using patient hospital charges and hospital specific cost to c

the material basis of the global economy worldwide patterns of natural resource extraction and their implications for sustainable resource use policies abstract material flow accounting and analysis mfa has been established as an influential framework for quantifying the use of natural resources by modern societies so far however no reference data for overall scale and trends of global extraction of natural resources and their distribution between different world regions has been available this paper presents the first comprehensive quantification of the material basis of the global economy i e used domestic extraction in a time series from 1980 to 2002 we analyse time trends for major material groups fossil fuels metals industrial and construction minerals and biomass disaggregated into seven world regions this allows for a an illustration of the global economy s physical growth driven by worldwide processes of economic integration over the past decades and b an indication of the worldwide distribution of environmental pressures associated with material extraction the results show that annual resource consumption of the world economy increased by about one third between 1980 and 2002 this indicates that scale effects due to economic growth more than compensated for other effects such as the relative increase of the service sectors contribution to gdp structural effect and the use of new production technologies with higher material and energy efficiency technology effect the observed growth of natural resource extraction is unevenly distributed over the main material categories with metals showing the highest growth rate the regional analysis shows the increasing importance of asia and latin america in global resource extraction on the global level material intensity i e resource extraction per unit of gdp decreased by about 25 indicating relative decoupling of resource extraction from economic growth the paper concludes with policy recommendations for a more sustainable use of natural resources

immigrant earnings assimilation estimates from longitudinal data analysis of longitudinal data for immigrants presents a more pessimistic portrait of immigrants economic success first the rate of growth of immigrant earnings was overstated in census based studies second the worsening of immigrant earnings for more recent arrival cohorts is deeper than previously suggested against these two negative findings one must keep in mind an important caveat the steeper cohort decline in earnings may be a sign of greater human capital investment by more recent immigrants longitudinal data suggest a strong degree of earnings convergence immigrants who start at lower earnings quickly make up a large part of the deficit relative to their immigrant counterparts

unequal raw material exchange between and within countries galicia nw spain as a core periphery economy abstract a global multi regional input output model with sub national resolution for galicia north west spain was used to study physical and value added trade balances between galicia the rest of spain and the world within the framework of ecologically unequal exchange theory we argue that a region such as galicia can play a twofold role as core and periphery in the global division of extractive activities we show that galicia is a sink i e net importer of natural resources from middle and low income economies and that the lower the income of the trade partner the more raw material intensive the imports measured as upstream kg per usd imported value added however this physical deficit is less accentuated than for the rest of spain and galicia s material footprint is significantly lower 14 2 compared with 24 5 t capita moreover galicia is a source i e net exporter of raw materials compared with more thriving european union economies and even for some key trade partners such as germany uk and the rest of spain it is a net importer of value added

global talent flows the global distribution of talent is highly skewed and the resources available to countries to develop and utilize their best and brightest vary substantially the migration of skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further using newly available data the paper first reviews the landscape of global talent mobility which is both asymmetric and rising in importance next the determinants of global talent flows at the individual and firm levels are presented and some important implications are sketched third the national gatekeepers for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches used to select migrants for admission are reviewed looking forward the capacity of people firms and countries to successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will be critical to their success

the economics of temporary migrations many migrations are temporary a fact that has often been ignored in the economic literature on migration such omission may be serious in that expected migration temporariness can impart a distinct dynamic element to immigrants economic behavior generating possible consequences for nonmigrants in both home and host countries in this paper we provide a thorough examination of the various aspects of temporary migrations that matter for the analysis of economic phenomena we demonstrate the extent of temporary migrations in population movements we show how temporariness can affect the various economic choices and how better data have improved both the measurement of nonpermanent migrations and the analyses of various aspects of migrant behavior we propose a general theoretical framework for modeling temporary migration decisions based on which we outline the various motives for temporariness while simultaneously reviewing related literature and available data sources we discuss the possible consequences of migration temporariness for nonmigrants in both home and host countries jel f22 f24 j11 j61 k37 o15

global patterns of materials use a socioeconomic and geophysical analysis abstract human use of materials is a major driver of global environmental change the links between materials use and economic development are central to the challenge of decoupling of materials use and economic growth dematerialization this article presents a new global material flow dataset compiled for the year 2000 covering 175 countries including both extraction and trade flows and comprising four major material categories biomass construction minerals fossil energy carriers and ores industrial minerals first we quantify the variability and distributional inequality gini coefficients in international material consumption we then measure the influence of the drivers population gdp land area and climate this analysis yields international income elasticities of material use finally we examine the coupling between material flows and between income and material productivity measured in economic production per tonne material consumed material productivity is strongly coupled to income and may thus not be suitable as an international indicator of environmental progress a finding which we relate to the economic inelasticity of material consumption the results demonstrate striking differences between the material groups biomass is the most equitably distributed resource economically the most inelastic and is not correlated to any of the mineral materials the three mineral material groups are closely coupled to each other and economic activity indicating that the challenge of dematerializing industrial economies may require fundamental structural transformation our analysis provides a first systematic investigation of international differences in material use and their drivers and thus serves as the basis for more detailed future work

the physical economy of the european union cross country comparison and determinants of material consumption abstract in this paper we investigate what determines observed differences in economy wide material use among the eu 15 member states the empirical basis for our analysis is an extended and revised material flow data set for each of the eu 15 countries in time series from 1970 to 2001 this data set comprises consistent data for domestic extraction imports and exports as well as for derived material flow indicators broken down by 12 types of materials we compare the level and composition of domestic material consumption dmc in the eu 15 member states and identify determinants of the observed differences across the european union member states overall dmc per capita varies by a factor of three ranging between 12 tonnes per capita in italy and the united kingdom and 37 tonnes per capita in finland this variability of dmc in the eu 15 is in a similar order of magnitude as the variability of gdp per capita or total primary energy supply per capita linear correlation analysis reveals that national income and final energy consumption relate to material use but cannot fully account for the observed differences in material consumption by breaking down overall material flow indicators into 12 categories of materials and analysing their use patterns in detail we identified a number of factors socio economic and natural that influence the level and composition of economy wide material use many of these factors are specific for certain types of materials others are more general and quite some driving factors counteract each other regarding the direction of their influence concluding we summarize the most important driving factors for domestic material consumption stressing population density as largely neglected but important explanatory variable for material use patterns discuss issues of environmental significance aggregation and the use of different denominators in material flow accounting and suggest a re interpretation of dmc

ossified materialism introduction to the special volume on absolute reductions in materials throughput and emissions drawing from papers in this special volume sv this introductory paper on absolute reductions argues that the magnitude scope and urgency of the sustainability challenge require a drastic change in global civilisation including a radical transformation of the institutional arrangements and socio technical systems that facilitate the pursuit of wellbeing the authors of this paper identify four main challenges to absolute reductions including the resource intensive conventional template for development macroeconomic structures and trade policies creating burden shifting and inequality a resourceefficiency improvements fallacy and the dominant consumerist culture and lifestyles the paper demonstrates

hidden linkages between resources and economy a beyond gdp approach using alternative welfare indicators taking gdp as the standard economic indicator for economic welfare recent resources economy studies indicate the dematerialization of the economy the so called decoupling effect this conclusion seems to alleviate concerns over resource scarcity and limits to growth and feeds optimism for green growth and sustainability prospects however the validity of gdp as the sole and unambiguous measure of the ultimate outcome of the economy has been severely disputed there is nowadays increasing interest in broader welfare measurements that capture more aspects of economic output and hence constitute better approximations of well being the present paper provides an overview of the above discussion and sets out to explore the relevance of three alternative welfare indicators the human development index hdi the index of sustainable economic welfare isew and the genuine progress indicator gpi as a basis for evaluating the dependency of welfare and its major engine the economy on natural resources increasing welfare appears to require a disproportionate use of resources strong and increasing dependency on resources at the global level and in giant countries such as china and india may have serious implications for current sustainability policies and the united nations sustainable development goals

bigger cakes with fewer ingredients a comparison of material use of the world economy the amount of materials used worldwide in production and consumption increased by 56 from 1995 to 2008 using an index decomposition analysis based on the logarithmic mean divisia index we investigate the drivers of material use both on a global and a country scale we exploit a panel dataset of 40 countries accounting for 75 of worldwide material extraction and 88 of gdp from 1995 to 2008 the results show that economic growth and structural change towards material intensive countries explain most of the growth in global material use slight gains in material efficiency and falling importance of material intensive sectors have decelerating effects the country level analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity some nations exhibit stable or falling material use while it increases notably in most countries improving material efficiency is able to dampen growth of material use in important industrializing nations like china or india

evaluating the efficiency of industrial environmental regulation in china a three stage data envelopment analysis approach abstract environmental regulation is of great concern to international academics and policy makers previous studies often regarded environmental regulation as an influencing factor when calculating eco efficiency or energy efficiency more attention should be given to the efficiency of environmental regulation especially in industrial field according to exiting studies industrial environmental regulation efficiency iere may be influenced by external environmental factors to explore the influence and obtain an actual efficiency this paper calculated iere in china by using the panel data of 30 regions from 2011 to 2015 the 12th five year plan period through the three stage data envelopment analysis approach firstly the undesirable slacks based model method was used to calculate the original iere secondly the economic base industrial structure urbanization level and education level were taken as external environmental variables and the effect of external environmental factors and stochastic disturbance were excluded thirdly the actual iere can be calculated after adjusting input values the results showed that china s iere was underestimated due to the impact from external environmental factors moreover the iere was more influenced by pure technical efficiency than scale efficiency the iere of each region varied thus targeted policies should be formulated according to local conditions this research provided a new analytical method for calculating environmental regulation efficiency the method can be applied either in other countries or in other sectors

resource duration as a managerial indicator for circular economy performance abstract this paper provides a new indicator for environmental assessment performance linked to circular economy almost all existing techniques evaluate resource use based on their burden relative to value while the central point of circular economy is to create value through material retention the existing burden orientated techniques are therefore unsuitable for guiding managers in relation to circular economy objectives this paper presents a new performance metric the longevity indicator which measures contribution to material retention based on the amount of time a resource is kept in use the measure is composed of three generic components initial lifetime earned refurbished lifetime and earned recycled lifetime management of these components can be used for decision making and performance assessment in the circular economy the example of precious metals in mobile phone handsets is used to illustrate the general application and suitability of this indicator findings show that for materials to be retained managers should encourage longer lifetime use increase product return levels for initial use and refurbished phones and select the most effective recycling processes available this paper advances performance indicators for circular economy and provides a tool which can be applied at managerial and organizational levels to measure the impact of business decisions on the longevity of precious materials

advancing factors influencing resource productivity through the use of the material utility framework abstract in this paper we propose material utility as a new concept for analyzing the influencing factors of resource productivity rp we demonstrate the application of this concept by empirically analyzing direct and indirect factors influencing rp results indicate the following 1 rp is essentially an aggregate of the efficiency of a material s major utility for different resource categories by weight of their respective utility coefficients 2 the direct factors influencing rp are utility coefficient c intensity of utility use in economic sectors t and economic structure s whereby c t and s respectively contribute 7 119 and 26 to the decline of fossil energy intensity the inverse of rp for fossil energy in china during the period of 1980 2010 3 the indirect factors influencing rp are resource quality technology and economic structure specifically rp can be increased by using higher quality resources e g metal ore with higher ore grade one unit 1 increase in research and development r d expenditure intensity and percentage of tertiary industry will result in 427 us ton and 40 us ton increase in rp respectively this research suggests new avenues for improving the accuracy of rp as an indicator and for policy measurement for increasing rp

the impact of labour market dynamics on the return migration of immigrants using administrative panel data on the entire population of new labour immigrants to the netherlands we estimate the effects of individual labour market spells on immigration durations using the timing of events method the model allows for correlated unobserved heterogeneity across migration unemployment and employment processes we find that unemployment spells increase return probabilities for all immigrant groups while re employment spells typically delay returns

unemployment insurance and unemployment spells this paper tests the effects of the level and length of unemployment insurance benefits on unemployment durations the paper particularly studies individual behavior during the weeks just prior to when benefits lapse higher unemployment insurance benefits are found to have a strong negative effect on the probability of leaving unemployment however the probability of leaving unemployment rises dramatically just prior to when benefits lapse individual data are used with accurate information of spell durations and the level and length of benefits the semiparametric estimation techniques used in the paper yield more plausible estimates than conventional approaches and provide useful diagnostics copyright 1990 by the econometric society

material flow accounts balances and derived indicators for the czech republic during the 1990s results and recommendations for methodological improvements abstract the economy and the environment are connected through material and energy flows these flows are the key cause of environmental problems together with land use and other biological and social factors and can serve as an indirect indicator of pressure on the environment the leading method for assessing material flows and dematerialisation at a macroeconomic level was developed during the 1990s by a number of research institutes and organisations the result of this effort was the guide eurostat 2001 92 this is a guide for the analysis of the total mass of annual material inputs and outputs for the whole economic system using accounts balances and derived indicators of material flows the manual touches only briefly on the flows between various sectors of the economy this article describes the application of material flow analysis mfa to the economy of the czech republic relevant indicators were derived on the basis of accounts and balances of material flows compiled for the czech republic for 1990 2000 the indicators and analysis of material flows presented here are the first results covering a long time period and a comprehensive set of material flow accounts in a transition economy the results show that indicators of material flows decreased during the 10 year period analysed by approximately 30 40 material intensity also dropped by 30 i e material efficiency increased by 30 while the material intensity of other countries such as germany dropped by 30 in the 15 year period finally it has been possible to demonstrate that economic growth as expressed by gdp has been decoupled from environmental pressure as expressed by material flow indicators the article proposes further work that should be undertaken in mfa at macroeconomic level in the czech republic in conclusion recommendations are made on how to improve the methodology used

global labour markets return and onward migration there is increasing evidence that international migration is characterized by frequent return and onward migration this has important consequences for the contribution of immigrants to the economy of the host country lack of longitudinal data has prevented much analysis of how frequently international migration involves a sequence of location decisions or how long the typical migrant stays in a host country a newly available longitudinal data set covering all immigrants to canada since 1980 provides the opportunity to address these issues the results show that a large fraction of male immigrants who are of working age especially among skilled workers and entrepreneurs are highly internationally mobile les flux migratoires internationaux sont caracterises par des retours frequents au pays d origine mais aussi par des departs vers une nouvelle destination voila qui a des consequences importantes pour la contribution des immigrants a l economie du pays d accueil le manque de donnees longitudinales a empeche jusqu ici le developpement d analyses de la frequence de ces migrations internationales qui impliquent une sequence de decisions de relocalisation et de la longueur du sejour de l immigrant typique dans un pays d accueil une nouvelle source de donnees longitudinales couvrant tous les immigrants vers le canada depuis 1980 permet d analyser ces questions les resultats montrent qu une forte fraction des hommes immigrants en ge de travailler et particulierement s il s agit de travailleurs specialises et d entrepreneurs sont tres mobiles internationalement

biophysical structure of the ecuadorian economy foreign trade and policy implications abstract at the core of this paper lays the notion that a systematic analysis of material flow accounts enables us to discuss the sustainability of an economic model ecuador is going through a socio ecological transition from an agrarian towards an industrial regime based on the use of nonrenewable sources of materials and energy direct material flow indicators are used in this article to analyze the ecological dimension of the economy of ecuador during 1970 2007 this approach enables the concept of societal metabolism to become operative the paper compares societal metabolic profiles showing that per capita use of materials is still at about one fifth of the average in the high income countries of the world physical flows of trade indicate that there is an ecologically unequal exchange whereas a positive trade balance is desirable from an economic policy its counterpart in physical units has been a persistent net outflow of material resources the extraction of which causes environmental impacts and social conflicts

outmigration of foreign born members in canada this paper studies the partial effect of various socio economic characteristics on the rate of outmigration of the foreign born from the canadian population the data sets used are based on the microdata of the 1971 and 1981 censuses of population it is found that migrants with high school education have the highest propensity to outmigrate while those with less than high school education have the lowest the propensity to outmigrate is positively related to the age of the migrant males tend to have a higher propensity to outmigrate while having a command of official languages reduces the propensity to outmigrate summary in fre excerpt

networks in the modern economy mexican migrants in the u s labor market this paper attempts to identify job networks among mexican migrants in the u s labor market the empirical analysis uses data on migration patterns and labor market outcomes based on a sample of individuals belonging to multiple origin communities in mexico over a long period of time each community s network is measured by the proportion of the sampled individuals who are located at the destination the united states in any year we verify that the same individual is more likely to be employed and to hold a higher paying nonagricultural job when his network is exogenously larger by including individual fixed effects in the employment and occupation regressions and by using rainfall in the origin community as an instrument for the size of the network at the destination

changes in the united kingdom s natural relations in terms of society s metabolism and land use from 1850 to the present day abstract in this paper we present our understanding of how society and nature have interacted in the course of history in terms of society s metabolic interchange with the biophysical environment presenting a theoretical model we begin by focusing on the interface between society and nature society s natural relations as conceptualized by the idea of metabolism which draws upon marxist theory complemented by a systems approach the concept of metabolism portrays society as a system which has to establish and maintain a permanent throughput of energy and matter to produce and maintain society s material components the amount of resource flow is operationalized by using material and energy flow accounting methods empirically these methods are applied to the uk s economy in a time series approach from 1850 to the present day we discuss different aggregates of inputs such as domestic material extraction foreign trade of materials energy input and additionally give an account of land use change obviously these changing natural relations are linked to socio economic activities hence we make a first attempt to discuss different periods of socio economic development by drawing from a regulation approach and try to link them to physical indicators such as direct material and energy input and domestic material consumption dmc thereby we hope to contribute to a historical understanding of socio economically driven environmental change within the framework of ecological economics

dynamic multidimensional assessment of sustainability at the macro level the case of austria abstract this paper explores the issue of sustainability at the macro scale employing multi criteria decision aid mcda methods the incommensurability of values and the essentially multi dimensional and dynamic nature of sustainability challenge the use of composite measurement indices this determined the choice of mcda methods austria was chosen as a case study due to the wide availability of data especially on indicators of strong sustainability the structure of the multi criteria problem comprised the evolution of different sustainability dimensions over time the process for selecting criteria included a critical assessment of institutional sustainability agendas un eu and austrian government and theoretical recommendations after an assessment of mcda methods the naiade method demonstrated the most suitable properties for sustainability assessment the application of this outranking approach was undertaken in three separate settings long term from 1960 to 2003 medium term 1970 1995 and short term 1995 2003 with varying numbers of criteria the response of results to the addition of evaluating criteria and periods was tested the degree of credibility for accepting preference relations was also employed for sensitivity analysis according to the results of long term and medium term assessments especially in the weak sustainability setting sustainable progress is taking place in austria in the short term in the stronger sustainability setting and especially as the number of criteria increases more incomparable periods appear and trends are less determined moreover it is shown how results crucially depend on the methodological choices this is one of the first applications of the multi criteria tools to the dynamic analysis of sustainability at the macro scale

the identity of ecological economics retrospects and prospects the paper first reveals the relevance of ecological economics in the time of a triple crisis ecological social and economic and promotes it as a distinct paradigm comprised of two interconnected and interdependent aspects the qualitative framework within which it operates and the quantitative models and techniques it uses to observe ecosystem resilience measure progress towards sustainability and evaluate policies while acknowledging the progress that has so far been made the paper argues that divergences in understanding the meaning and content of ecological economics hinder its effectiveness and influence on real world policy making and calls for a unified framework as a common ground that would strengthen the field and direct research the implication of this position then follows pointing out what has so far been missing from the ecological economics analysis and what should be done for it to become a more problem oriented and policy relevant alternative copyright oxford university press

the demand for alcohol the differential response to price although several studies indicate that drinking is responsive to price little work has focused on whether prices have a differential effect on light moderate or heavy drinking this study examines the price responsiveness of the demand for alcohol whether heavy drinkers are less sensitive to price than light or moderate drinkers the study uses data on alcohol consumption on the 1983 national health interview survey the results indicate that both light and heavy drinkers are much less price elastic than moderate drinkers further we cannot reject the hypothesis that the very heaviest drinkers have perfectly price inelastic demands