does economic recession reduce material use empirical evidence based on 157 economies worldwide abstract the research on economic recession has been more focused on the interactions between macroeconomic and financial variables however whether material use has been affected during the recession period has remained under explored in order to fill up this gap this study investigates the relationship between material use and economic recession as well as other socio economic drivers by using the material flow analysis and the system generalized method of moments for 157 economies worldwide during 1980 2011 results show that economic recession poses significant and negative impact on domestic material consumption at 1 level illustrating its role as a determinant factor on material mitigation by dividing the research sample into extractive and non extractive economies as well as high mid and low income groups we again confirmed the significant negative correlations as expected no significant sign is found between recession and physical trade balance besides other drivers such as population gross domestic production gdp per capita and technological variables also exert marked effects at different situations this research work provides an empirical study on how recession and other factors affect material use at various scenarios which have essential implications for understanding material flow dynamics in different economic cycles

international trade and energy intensity during european industrialization 1870 1935 the study was conducted in the research project who did the dirty work energy embodied in european and global trade 1800 1970 funded by the swedish research council 421 2013 1110 vetenskapsradet

baumol s disease and dematerialization of the economy this paper argues that there is reason to be skeptical about the idea that the transition to a service economy will bring about dematerialization of production and consequent environmental improvement this is because the shift to a service economy is an illusion in terms of real production but is instead generated by the fall in the price of manufacturing goods relative to services which is in turn caused by more rapid productivity growth in manufacturing than in services this argument relies on the insights baumol provided on the nature of the service economy and uses swedish long term data on relative sectoral development as an empirical illustration on the other hand the paper argues that there is reason to be cautiously optimistic that structural change may bring about a greening of growth namely the changes in growth patterns sometimes labeled the third industrial revolution which is connected to the emergence of microelectronics swedish co2 emissions show a decline after 1970 which is mainly explained by a politically driven change in the mix of energy carriers but is also related to the stabilization of energy consumption this energy stabilization was caused by slow growth of the economy in conjunction with substantial declines in energy intensity within industrial sectors and an absence of relative growth of the heavy sectors a growth that had marked the economy between 1870 and 1970 microelectronics have contributed to permanently transforming the swedish industrial sector in a lighter direction reducing energy losses in heavy industries and stabilizing household energy consumption so it appears as if there may be some environmental gains from this development that was initiated in the 1970s but not from relatively more production in the service sector

green goals and full employment are they compatible abstract two empirical correlations are studied one between economic growth and environmental impacts and the other between the lack of economic growth and unemployment it is demonstrated that at a global level economic growth is strongly correlated with environmental impacts and barriers to fast decoupling are large and numerous on the other hand low or negative growth is highly correlated with increasing unemployment in most market economies and strategies to change this lead to difficult questions and tradeoffs the coexistence of these two correlations which have rarely been studied together in the literature on green growth degrowth and a growth justifies ambivalence about growth to make key environmental goals compatible with full employment the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic output has to be accompanied by a reduction of dependence on growth in particular strategies to tackle unemployment without the need for growth several of which are studied in this article need much more attention in research and policy

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

tracing the impacts of a northern open economy on the global environment the globalization of the world economy has increased resource flows around the planet raising pressures on the environment historically northern industrialized economies have been responsible for the majority of resource consumption while developing countries have suffered the associated social and environmental impacts this article analyzes the extra territorial responsibility of the basque economy europe to illustrate the responsibility of northern open economies towards the global environment to do this we i analyze the material and energy flows of the basque economy their source and impacts on other regions of the world ii study the impact of the economic and investment activities of basque companies abroad and iii examine together with other paradigmatic examples three case studies from latin america east africa and southeast asia that represent the liabilities of northern economies in the global south this approach allows us to connect production and consumption processes in affluent countries with associated socio ecological impacts in the extraction frontiers in order to better understand and potentially transform current economic patterns and their consequences in addition the study indicates how to bridge the gap between local and global scales creating a useful approach to raising social awareness and informing public policies in resource intensive societies

a qualitative dynamical modelling approach to capital accumulation in unregulated fisheries capital accumulation has been a major issue in fisheries economics over the last two decades whereby the interaction of the fish and capital stocks were of particular interest because bio economic systems are intrinsically complex previous efforts in this field have relied on a variety of simplifying assumptions the model presented here relaxes some of these simplifications problems of tractability are surmounted by using the methodology of qualitative differential equations qde the theory of qdes takes into account that scientific knowledge about particular fisheries is usually limited and facilitates an analysis of the global dynamics of systems with more than two ordinary differential equations the model is able to trace the evolution of capital and fish stock in good agreement with observed patterns and shows that over capitalization is unavoidable in unregulated fisheries r 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

defining viable recovery paths toward sustainable fisheries this paper develops a formal analysis of the recovery process for a fishery from crisis situations to desired levels of sustainable exploitation using the theoretical framework of viable control we define sustainability as a combination of biological economic and social constraints which need to be met for a viable fishery to exist biological constraints are based on the definition of a minimum resource stock to be preserved economic constraints relate to the existence of a guaranteed profit per vessel social constraints refer to the maintenance of a minimum size of the fleet and to the maximum speed at which fleet adjustment can take place using fleet size adjustment and fishing effort per vessel as control variables we first identify the states of this bioeconomic system for which sustainable exploitation is possible i e for which all constraints can be dynamically met such favorable states are called viable states we then examine possible transition phases from non viable to viable states we characterize recovery paths with respect to the time of crisis of the trajectory which is the number of periods during which the constraints are not respected the approach is applied to the single stock of the bay of biscay nephrops fishery the transition path identified through the viability approach is compared to the historical recovery process and to both open access and optimal harvesting scenarios

buyback subsidies the time consistency problem and the itq alternative this paper deals with the time consistency problem associated with buyback schemes arising from the fact that the schemes may be anticipated by vessel owners after reviewing and elaborating upon the key results of our recently published article on buybacks and limited entry programs we discuss the consequences of combining buybacks with itq schemes or the equivalent instead of limited entry programs we conclude that substituting itq schemes for limited entry programs cannot be relied upon to eliminate fully the time consistency problem we suggest that what may be required is a management program that combines rights based schemes with taxes

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 viability analysis for a bio economic model abstract this paper presents a simple dynamic model dealing with the management of a marine renewable resource but instead of studying the ecological and economic interactions in terms of equilibrium or optimal control we pay much attention to the viability of the system or in a symmetric way to crisis situations these viability crisis situations are defined by a set of economic and biological state constraints the analytical study focuses on the compatibility between the state constraints and the controlled dynamics using the mathematical concept of viability kernel we reveal the situations and if possible management options to guarantee a perennial system going further we define overexploitation indicators by the time of crisis function in particular we point out irreversible overexploitation configurations related to the resource extinction

long term changes in co2 emissions in austria and czechoslovakia identifying the drivers of environmental pressures this study presents fossil fuel related co2 emissions in austria and czechoslovakia current czech republic and slovakia for 1830 2000 the drivers of co2 emissions are discussed by investigating the variables of the standard kaya identity for 1920 2000 and conducting a comparative index decomposition analysis proxy data on industrial production and household consumption are analysed to understand the role of the economic structure co2 emissions increased in both countries in the long run czechoslovakia was a stronger emitter of co2 throughout the time period but per capita emissions significantly differed only after world war i when czechoslovakia and austria became independent the difference in co2 emissions increased until the mid 1980s the period of communism in czechoslovakia explained by the energy intensity and the composition effects and higher industrial production in czechoslovakia counterbalancing factors were the income effect and household consumption after the velvet revolution in 1990 czechoslovak co2 emissions decreased and the energy composition effect and industrial production lost importance despite their different political and economic development austria and czechoslovakia reached similar levels of per capita co2 emissions in the late 20th century neither austrian eco efficiency nor czechoslovak restructuring have been effective in reducing co2 emissions to a sustainable level

pathways to a resource efficient and low carbon europe abstract various environmental footprint concepts have already been developed and applied in sustainability research however these analyses tend to remain restricted to historical observation samples at least in comparison with related research activities in other environmental policy domains like e g climate policy it seems that applications of integrated assessment tools represent rather seldom exceptions within the resource policy domain our paper is therefore intended to strengthen the related evidence base we present recent projections from the dynamic multi region input output mrio simulation model ginfors global inter industry forecasting system which provide an outlook on global development trends until the year 2050 our detailed material footprint and climate policy assessment indicates that a global agreement on a policy mix will allow a clear turnaround towards climate protection and a sustainable use of natural resources without deteriorating economic performance if the eu decides unilaterally to lead the way then this turnaround could also be achieved for the eu while the eu would also benefit economically from this pioneering role a third pathway towards a resource efficient and low carbon europe quantifies the environmental and economic impacts of a strong transitional change induced by european citizens commitments to far reaching sufficiency objectives

a continuous logit hotelling model with endogenous locations of consumers this paper analyzes location and price choices of firms and subsequent location choices of consumers in a linear city model when consumers have different perceptions of locations and firms the study utilizes a continuous logit model to describe consumers location and supplier choices a unique subgame perfect nash equilibrium exists where firms make positive profits and the minimum differentiation principle applies for identical firms prices converge to marginal costs as heterogeneity of consumers perceptions disappears

not only subterranean forests wood consumption and economic development in britain 1850 1938 abstract this paper analyzes wood consumption in britain over the period 1850 1938 we calculate the apparent consumption of wood taking into account both net imports of wood and the home harvest we then develop some quantitative exercises that correlate wood consumption with gdp with prices of wood and iron as an alternative material to wood and with other measures the main conclusion is that although wood had lost its economic centrality after the energy transition wood consumption continued to grow in britain both in absolute and relative terms showing a positive elasticity to gdp superior to the unit this result allows us to reach a more complete understanding of the socio metabolic transition associated with the industrial revolution britain faced the increase in wood demand by relying almost entirely on imported wood reinforcing the idea that the decoupling of economic growth from land use must to be handled with care and should be observed not at the national level but on a global scale although british economic development was to a great extent focussed on what has been called the subterranean forests of coal it simultaneously supported large tracts of surface foreign forest

equilibrium existence in the linear model of spatial competition this paper considers a generalization of the hotelling model of spatial competition it is shown that a pure strategy perfect equilibrium in the two stage location price game exists only under very stringent conditions these conditions are in fact the conditions for profit to be concave in price for any given location pair when the solution concept is extended to allow for mixed strategies there is no symmetric equilibrium involving pure strategies if transport costs are not sufficiently convex the convexity of transport costs is crucial in determining whether there is excessive or insufficient diversity of products copyright 1988 by the london school of economics and political science

the principle of minimum differentiation revisited abstract hotelling s model of differentiated products is examined and modified so that consumers have relatively low reservation prices for the differentiated products the problem of existence of a nash equilibrium in prices in a duopoly with given products is analysed when the reservation price is relatively low a nash equilibrium in prices exists for a larger range of products than when the reservation price is infinite next i examine product competition with instantaneous adjustment to the nash equilibrium prices of the previous game firms competing in a nash fashion have tendencies to move away from each other and try to achieve local monopolistic positions this is in sharp contrast with the acclaimed principle of minimum differentiation of the original model of hotelling of high reservation price where firms clustered in the product space

the socio economic drivers of material stock accumulation in japan s prefectures physical economy research has thus far focused on the throughput of materials that underpin economic development the role of stocks of buildings and infrastructure has remained underexplored yet it is the physical stock that provides service to society to fill this gap this research investigates stock dynamics in japan in relation to population and economic drivers using panel regression and ipat analyses for the past five decades we recognize characteristic changes in the strength and relative influence of the drivers throughout time in different subnational regions and on the dynamics of buildings compared to transportation infrastructure we find that material stock accumulation mainly occurred due to growth in economic activity specifically by tertiary sector demand apart from a period of government driven stock accumulation in the 1990s to stimulate economic growth as economic and population growth slowed stock accumulation dynamics also changed signaling a new stock saturation trend migration from rural to urban areas has recently become an influential driver leaving behind underused buildings and roads this analysis provides a case study on how socio economic drivers and stock accumulation interacted and changed while the country matured which may have implications for understanding stock dynamics in rapidly industrializing economies

the physical economy of france 1830 2015 the history of a parasite abstract this article explores long term trends and patterns of material use in france for a 185 year period it is the first long term study of material flows for france with national and yearly data for most of the period based on a material flow analysis mfa that is fully consistent with current standards of economy wide mfas and covers domestic extraction imports and exports of materials we investigated the evolution of the french metabolism from industrialization to financialized capitalism over the whole period there is a 9 fold increase in domestic material consumption an expansion of material use per capita and a spectacular addition of abiotic resources fossil fuels and minerals to biotic materials using a world ecology framework we exhibit a specific metabolic path that of a state benefiting from successive world systems for its economic development through massive material imports

towards more accurate and policy relevant footprint analyses tracing fine scale socio environmental impacts of production to consumption the consumption of internationally traded goods causes multiple socio environmental impacts current methods linking production impacts to final consumption typically trace the origin of products back to the country level lacking fine scale spatial resolution this hampers accurate calculation of trade and consumption footprints masking and distorting the causal links between consumers choices and their environmental impacts especially in countries with large spatial variability in socio environmental conditions and production impacts here we present the sei pcs model spatially explicit information on production to consumption systems which allows for fine scale sub national assessments of the origin of and socio environmental impacts embedded in traded commodities the method connects detailed production data at sub national scales e g municipalities or provinces information on domestic flows of goods and in international trade the model permits the downscaling of country to country trade analyses based on either physical allocation from bilateral trade matrices or mrio models the importance of producing more spatially explicit trade analyses is illustrated by identifying the municipalities of brazil from which different countries source the brazilian soy they consume applications for improving consumption accounting and policy assessment are discussed including quantification of externalities of consumption consumer labeling trade leakages sustainable resource supply and traceability

seea 2003 accounting for sustainable development abstract the revised seea 2003 elaborates physical and hybrid environmental economic accounts details valuation techniques for natural resources but rejects monetary valuation of environmental degradation as modeling preference for physical accounting and corresponding loss of systemic coherence as compared to the seea 1993 prevents meeting the proclaimed objective of assessing sustainable development

food regimes and their trade links a socio ecological perspective abstract the concept of food regimes has become a prominent theory in political economy we here provide socio ecological underpinning of the food regimes theory and thereby connect it closer to an ecological economics perspective we quantify physical trade with main agricultural commodities between world regions from the mid 19th century to 2016 and ask how trade patterns relate to issues of resource use in particular to land use soil fertility and the energetic basis of agriculture agricultural exports rose from a few million t yr around 1870 to 1 4 billion t yr in 2016 growth in trade and production did not follow a continuous trend periods of accelerated growth alternating with phases of relative stability can be distinguished rather than directed modernization we observe shifts in unequal relations of power physical exchange and environmental pressure between changing centers and peripheries the periods of growth in trade match with the periodization of food regimes we find that regime shifts are closely related to changes in societies energy metabolism in the resource base of agricultural production and also to agro ecological crisis our analysis emphasizes that food regimes not only reflect changes in power relations in the world system but also changes in societies natural relations

the high price of dematerialization a dynamic panel data analysis of material use and economic recession abstract dematerialization at the national level occurs almost exclusively during periods of economic recession or low growth while recession is not a sustainable strategy to curb environmental impact such periods may offer important insights on the possibilities of reducing material use economic recession research has focused on the interactions between macroeconomic and financial variables with little systematic research dedicated to uncovering how resource use develops during periods of recession using a dynamic panel model we investigate whether and to what extent material use in a sample of 150 economies between 1970 and 2010 was affected by recession and low growth recession occurred most frequently and in more than two thirds of all countries during the 1980s and the 1990s in the 2000s more than half of the recessions occurred during the financial crisis of 2008 periods of recession were significantly and negatively correlated with material use they tended to coincide with dematerialization material use decreased in recession years but the significant correlations with growth in material use became weaker as growth rates increased construction minerals and metals used to build stocks of manufactured capital reacted more strongly to economic fluctuations than the throughput dominated flows of biomass and fossil fuels we conclude that the systematic link between recession and dematerialization can become policy relevant if the mechanisms causing reductions in material use during these periods are identified

growth in global materials use gdp and population during the 20th century the growing industrial metabolism is a major driver of global environmental change we present an assessment of the global use of materials since the beginning of the 20th century based on the conceptual and methodological principles of material flow accounting mfa on the grounds of published statistical data data compilations and estimation procedures for material flows not covered by international statistical sources we compiled a quantitative estimate of annual global extraction of biomass fossil energy carriers metal ores industrial minerals and construction minerals for the period 1900 to 2005 this period covers important phases of global industrialisation and economic growth the paper analyses the observed changes in the overall size and composition of global material flows in relation to the global economy population growth and primary energy consumption we show that during the last century global materials use increased 8 fold humanity currently uses almost 60 billion tons gt of materials per year in particular the period after wwii was characterized by rapid physical growth driven by both population and economic growth within this period there was a shift from the dominance of renewable biomass towards mineral materials materials use increased at a slower pace than the global economy but faster than world population as a consequence material intensity i e the amount of materials required per unit of gdp declined while materials use per capita doubled from 4 6 to 10 3 t cap yr the main material groups show different trajectories while biomass use hardly keeps up with population growth the mineral fractions grow at a rapid pace we show that increases in material productivity are mostly due to the slow growth of biomass use while they are much less pronounced for the mineral fractions so far there is no evidence that growth of global materials use is slowing down or might eventually decline and our results indicate that an increase in material productivity is a general feature of economic development

patterns of change in material use and material efficiency in the successor states of the former soviet union the successor states of the former soviet union present a unique opportunity to study the changes in the socio metabolic profile of a cohort of nations which underwent a radical and contemporaneous shift in economic system that change was from being regions within an economically integrated centrally planned whole to being independent nations left to find their own place in the global economic system the situation of these nations since the dissolution of the soviet union provides a rare experiment in which we might observe the influence of the different starting conditions of each nation on the development path it subsequently followed and the attendant socio metabolic profiles which resulted here we take the opportunity to examine patterns for the region as a whole and for three individual countries we also examine the relative importance of three different drivers of material consumption using a version of the ipat framework finally an area for follow on investigation was suggested by a significant positive correlation observed between the economic growth of individual successor states and the degree to which they improved their material productivity this latter is of potential importance in assessing whether dematerialization acts primarily to accelerate or retard economic growth

energy use and economic development a comparative analysis of useful work supply in austria japan the united kingdom and the us during 100 years of economic growth this paper presents a societal level exergy analysis approach developed to analyse transitions in the way that energy is supplied and contributes to economic growth in the uk the us austria and japan throughout the last century we assess changes in exergy and useful work consumption energy efficiency and related gdp intensity measures of each economy the novel data provided elucidate certain characteristics of divergence and commonality in the energy transitions studied the results indicate that in each country the processes of industrialization urbanisation and electrification are characterised by a marked increase in exergy and useful work supplies and per capita intensities there is a common and continuous decrease in the exergy intensity of gdp moreover for each country studied the trend of increasing useful work intensity of gdp reversed in the early 1970s coincident with the first oil crisis

an open access fishery with rational expectations explain the evolution of the fish stock and the boat fleet as well as determine their equilibrium levels 2 while the changes in the fish stock are described by a biological rule entry and exit from the fishing industry are determined by how expectations are formed we examine a general model in which entry and exit are proportional to the present value of expected profits and compare two special cases of adaptive myopic expectations and rational expectations although both expectations mechanisms lead to the same equilibrium values they lead to different adjustment paths where expectations solely depend on current values myopic expectations it is well known that boats enter the fishery only when the fish stock is greater than its steady state stock 3 with rational expectations however boats may enter when the fish stock is much lower than its steady state value provided the boat fleet is sufficiently small this difference in adjustment is observable and in principle leads to an obvious test on how agents form expectations section 2 develops a general dynamic model for studying fisheries in section 3 we show that the model standardly used in the literature is equivalent to a myopic adaptive expectations model a rational expectations model is analyzed in section 4 the standard and rational expectations models are compared in section 5 section 6 illustrates this comparison using a simulation based on a schaefer model of the pacific halibut fishery section 7 presents the conclusions

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

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

energy property and the industrial revolution narrative the industrial revolution ir story is the core of a mainstream economic history narrative of energy development relationships celebrating modern economic growth meg as the increase in per capita energy consumption in the last two centuries such a narrative emphasizes mineral technology and private property as the key elements of growth processes i will criticize the above narrative from a socio environmental history perspective for its inability to account for two crucial aspects of energy history 1 the role of social power as key determinant in how energy sources are used and to what ends 2 the socio ecological costs associated with the increase of energy consumption i will then review environmental history studies on energy industrialization and highlight possible future developments in the field the article makes a strong point for the need to look at energy transitions as social processes and to include the unequal distribution of environmental health and social costs of mineral energy into global history narratives

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

how countries resource use history matters for human well being an investigation of global patterns in cumulative material flows from 1950 to 2010 abstract global resource use has been expanding rapidly after 1950 and improved material living conditions and human well being of large parts of the global population we here apply a cumulative long term perspective to gain broader insights into the material requirements of human well being the role of trade and the history of environmental pressures than the usual perspective of annual or most recent flows would reveal furthermore we investigate environmental pressures expressed as cumulative extraction per area over the last 60 years to both ends we utilize cumulative data on material flows on domestic material inputs dmi and domestic extraction de for 148 countries from 1950 to 2010 and the social progress index we find that a high level of well being required at least 460 t cap of cumulative material inputs from 1950 to 2010 an analysis of the relation between cumulative flows and current human well being shows statistically significant that at similar levels of cumulative material inputs biophysical export orientation of a country has a weak negative influence on well being when the sustainable development goals are to be achieved the scientific community and policy makers have to consider the history of development of resource use to better understand the future challenges ahead

subsidies buybacks and sustainable fisheries abstract most fisheries subsidies which on a worldwide scale are immense are probably detrimental to resource conservation however payments used to buy out excess fishing capacity are often represented as useful subsidies on the grounds that overcapacity encourages overfishing and causes economic waste some commentators on the other hand assert that most buyback subsidies are ineffective because additional capacity tends to seep back into the fishery over time in this paper we take the latter argument further and demonstrate that buyback subsidies if they come to be anticipated by fishermen will generally have a negative effect on economic performance and resource conservation consequently buyback subsidies are perhaps over rated as a management tool

the biophysical perspective of a middle income economy material flows in mexico abstract we analyse natural resource use dynamics in the mexican economy during the last three decades despite low and uneven economic growth the extraction and use of materials in the mexican economy has continuously increased during the last 30 years in this period population growth rather than economic growth was the main driving force for biophysical growth in addition fundamental changes have taken place in the primary sectors in manufacturing and in household consumption and these are reflected in an increasing emphasis on the use of fossil fuels and construction materials mexico s economy has been strongly influenced by international trade since the country commenced competing in international markets in the 1970s mexico mainly exported primary resources this pattern has changed and manufactured goods now have a much greater importance due to a boom in assembling industries in contrast with other latin american countries mexico has achieved a diversification of production moving towards technology intensive products and a better mix in its export portfolio however crude oil exports still represent the single most important export good mexico s material consumption is still well below the oecd average but is growing fast and the current resource use patterns may well present serious social and environmental problems to the medium and long term sustainability of mexico s economy and community information on natural resource use and resource productivity could provide valuable guidance for economic policy planning in mexico

foreign trade and early industrialisation in the habsburg monarchy and the united kingdom two extremes in comparison the concept of socio ecological transitions is used to analyse the quantitative importance of physical imports and exports for the habsburg empire and the united kingdom in the 19th and early 20th centuries for the habsburg empire a new dataset of foreign trade and social metabolism is presented for the united kingdom the analysis relies on previously published data foreign trade volumes increased in both countries in the long run total trade volumes were much higher in the united kingdom throughout the entire time period on average by around a factor four physical factors explaining the disparities in structure and volume of foreign trade in the two countries are differences in 1 the temporal patterns of the socio ecological transition and 2 domestic resource endowments in both countries energy carrying materials i e fossil fuels and biomass were the dominant resources in physical foreign trade the analysis focuses on the physically most important material groups coal wood and cereals and discusses the role of imports and exports in relation to domestic resource provision and environmental pressures physical foreign trade increased at a faster pace than domestic resource extraction and consumption the socio ecological transition was thus accompanied by rising international integration of resource supply

what causes inequality in material productivity between countries abstract material productivity mp is a sustainability indicator that measures usage efficiency for raw materials the use of natural resources has grown steeply since the industrial revolution and this growth has even accelerated in recent decades it has thus become critical to monitor the intensity of natural resource usage when producing intermediate or final goods discovering which socio economic variables influence the mp indicator and explain differences between economic units is nowadays a key issue on average mp has increased over the past two decades but at the same time so has disparity between countries this paper s contribution consists in discovering the explanatory variables for both these phenomena in order to achieve that aim a regression based inequality decomposition rbid methodology is used the original fields rbid model has been transformed into a logarithmic model which allows us to directly obtain the elasticity of mp to changes in its drivers the sample we use is broadly representative of the worldwide situation in the years 1990 2010 our main results are that in terms of explaining inequalities and changes in mp the agricultural share of gdp is the most relevant explanatory variable and that this is followed by affluence the explanatory powers of population density and trade openness are perhaps surprisingly of much lower importance the results are useful not only in academic terms but also for policy guidance

long term trends in resource exergy consumption and useful work supplies in the uk 1900 to 2000 abstract our aim is to explain historical economic growth in the uk economy by introducing an empirical measure for useful work derived from natural resource energy inputs into an augmented production function to do this we estimate the long term 1900 2000 trends in resource exergy supply and conversion to useful work in the united kingdom the exergy resources considered included domestic consumption of coal crude oil and petroleum products natural gas nuclear and renewable resources including biomass all flows of exergy were allocated to an end use such as providing heat light transport human and animal work and electrical power for each end use we estimated a time dependent efficiency of conversion from exergy to useful work the 3 factor production function of capital labour and useful work is able to reproduce the historic trajectory of economic growth without recourse to any exogenous assumptions of technological progress or total factor productivity the results indicate that useful work derived from natural resource exergy is an important factor of production

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

decentralized regulation of a common property renewable resource industry with irreversible investment abstract the effectiveness of output controls for rationalizing a common property renewable resource has been called into question by the theoretical work of j r gould economica nov 383 402 1972 a proper examination of this question requires an intertemporal analysis one that takes into account that asymmetries between persistent factors of production immaleable capital and factors that are instantaneously consumed labor or ldharvest effort we present here a nonlinear intertemporal model of a renewable resource industry under conditions of irreversible capital investment and undertake to analyze its dynamics both at open access and under centralized optimal management we then examine the theoretical possibility of decentralized regulation by pigouvian taxes and reconsider the proposition of gould

socio ecological regime transitions in austria and the united kingdom we employ the concepts of socio ecological regime and regime transition to better understand the biophysical causes and consequences of industrialization for two case studies the united kingdom and austria we describe two steps in a major transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio ecological regime and the resulting consequences for energy use land use and labour organization in a first step the coal based industrial regime co existed with an agricultural sector remaining within the bounds of the old regime in a second step the oil electricity based industrial regime agriculture was integrated into the new pattern and the socio ecological transition had been completed industrialization offers an answer to the input and growth related sustainability problems of the agrarian regime but creates new sustainability problems of a larger scale while today s industrial societies are stabilizing their resource use albeit at an unsustainable level large parts of the global society are in midst of the old industrial transition this poses severe problems for global sustainability

the effect of globalisation on water consumption a case study of the spanish virtual water trade 1849 1935 abstract this paper aims to analyse the impact on water consumption of trade expansion in the first era of globalisation to that end we have chosen the case of spain a semi arid country with significant cyclical water shortages more specifically we are interested in answering the following questions what volume of water was required for exports of agricultural and food products how did this variable evolve over time which factors drove this evolution in short we wish to understand the impact on water resources of spain s entry into world agriculture and food markets firstly we examine virtual water trade flows in the long run secondly we attempt to disentangle certain major driving forces underlying these trajectories in order to establish the role played by trade in the final net balance of water a decomposition analysis da is applied our findings show the great pressures that the first globalisation imposed on not only domestic but also foreign water resources trade volumes as well as trade patterns were essential factors driving rising virtual water flows while yield improvements contributed smoothly to moderation in the expansion of water flows