crisis or opportunity economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability introduction to this special issue abstract this article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth this is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level in the short and long term the paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible degrowth proponents come from diverse origins some are critics of market globalization new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world all criticize gdp accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations demand a deepening of democracy defend ecosystems and propose a more equal distribution of wealth we distinguish between depression i e unplanned degrowth within a growth regime and sustainable degrowth a voluntary smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption the question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis it would actually be a democratic collective decision a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio environmental justice worldwide most articles in this issue were originally presented at the april 2008 conference in paris on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity this conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article hueting d alessandro and colleagues van den bergh kerschner spangenberg and alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are un sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable matthey and hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth lietaert and cattaneo with gavalda offer a down to earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments cohousing and squats highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives finally van griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes

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

inequality and mobility of household incomes in europe evidence from the echp in this article we want to shed light on two aspects of income mobility relative total income mobility using the estimator by fields and ok 1999 and equalization of long run incomes measured by the index of fields 2009 the cross country comparison shows a negative relationship between total relative mobility and long run income equalization this result is contrary to the intuition given by shorrocks 1978a who stated that higher relative mobility will cause higher equalization of incomes when the accounting period is extended

the proximity of nations to a socially sustainable steady state economy abstract there has been increasing interest in new economic models that aim to improve quality of life without increasing consumption this article provides the first empirical analysis of how close modern day economies are to the concept of a steady state economy and explores whether there is any relationship between a country s proximity to such an economy and its social performance the analysis is carried out using the degrowth accounts a set of 16 biophysical and social indicators that are derived from herman daly s definition of a steady state economy and the social goals of the degrowth movement these indicators are applied to 180 countries over a 10 year period the analysis reveals that the majority of countries in the world are biophysical growth economies there are only a small number of countries where resource use is relatively constant from year to year e g denmark france japan poland romania and the us and only four countries experiencing biophysical degrowth germany guyana moldova and zimbabwe there are no countries that achieve a true steady state economy defined as an economy with a stable level of resource use maintained within ecological limits however a few countries come relatively close including colombia cuba kyrgyzstan romania and south africa in general countries with stable resource use perform better on many social indicators than countries with either increasing or decreasing resource use this finding runs contrary to conventional economic thought however social performance is also higher in countries with greater per capita resource use overall these findings suggest that a steady state economy can be socially sustainable but countries need to become much more efficient at transforming natural resources into human well being if all seven billion people on earth are to lead a good life within ecological limits

measuring movement of incomes we consider a small set of elementary properties for income movement measures and show that there is essentially only one measure that satisfies all of these properties the per capita aggregate change in log incomes we demonstrate next that this movement mobility measure has a number of appealing descriptive and normative properties and provide a formal generalization of our basic characterization theorem drawing from the related literature on poverty measurement finally we present here an empirical application in which we show by using our new measure that there has been a broad based increase in income movement in the united states between the 1970s and 1980s

economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries this study provides an introduction to this special issue of the journal of development studies on economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries in addition to providing a conceptual framework it outlines how the contributions fit into the extant literature a series of regularities emerge across these studies the poor consist of those who are always poor poor at all dates and those who move in and out of poverty with the latter group tending to be strikingly large such movements in and out of poverty are apparent when looking at poverty in either absolute or relative terms changes in returns to endowments can be a potent source of increased incomes finally seemingly transitory shocks can have long term consequences the study concludes by drawing out the policy implications of these regularities

sustainable innovation business models and economic performance an overview sustainable development requires radical and systemic innovations such innovations can be more effectively created and studied when building on the concept of business models this concept provides firms with a holistic framework to envision and implement sustainable innovations for researchers the concept provides an analytical tool that allows them to assess the interplay between the different aspects that firms combine to create ecological economic and social value in addition the business model concept provides a link between the individual firm and the larger production and consumption system in which it operates this paper provides an introduction to the special issue which emerged from selected papers presented at the erscp emsu 2010 conference held in delft the netherlands papers in the special issue cover a broad range from a conceptual discussion resulting in a research agenda the assessment of diffusion of specific business models such as product service systems the introduction of new management tools for business transition management to case studies on how specific business models evolved in specific communities together these papers provide insight into the promise of the business model concept for understanding and advancing sustainable innovation

how sustainable entrepreneurs engage in institutional change insights from biomass torrefaction in the netherlands sustainable entrepreneurship often requires a purposeful change to the existing business environment market regulations and societal norms and values institutions to ensure sustainable products and services become legitimate and competitive yet how sustainable entrepreneurs alter or create institutions remains unclear we employ a two year comparative case study with four entrepreneurs commercializing torrefied biomass in the netherlands consistent with insights from institutional entrepreneurship research findings show that sustainable entrepreneurs create new symbols theorize construct new measures build consensus and forge new relations to alter or create new institutions moreover we find that entrepreneurial collaboration in the form of a trade association has three feedback effects it creates accessible modes diversity of scope and an increased scale of institutional change strategies we conclude that future studies should further connect sustainable and institutional entrepreneurship research and take group and individual factors into account when explaining how sustainable entrepreneurs engage in institutional change

long run welfare under externalities in consumption leisure and production a case for happy degrowth vs unhappy growth in this paper we contribute to the debate on the relationship between growth and well being by examining an endogenous growth model where we allow for externalities in consumption leisure and production we analyze three regimes a decentralized economy where each household makes isolated choices without considering their external effects a planned economy where a myopic planner fails to recognize both leisure and consumption externalities but recognizes production externalities and a planned economy with a fully informed planner we first compare the balanced growth paths under the three regimes and then we numerically investigate the transition to the optimal balanced growth path we provide a number of findings first in a decentralized economy growth or labor or both are greater than in the regime with a fully informed planner and hence are sub optimal from a welfare standpoint second a myopic intervention which overlooks consumption and leisure externalities leads to more growth and labor than in both the decentralized and the fully informed regime third we provide a case for happy degrowth a transition to the optimal balanced growth path that is associated with downscaling of production a reduction in private consumption and an ongoing increase in leisure and well being

detroit after bankruptcy a case of degrowth machine politics it is widely accepted that neoliberalism is intensified in times of crisis and jamie peck has argued that austerity urbanism has been implemented at the urban scale since the 2008 financial crisis this article questions whether this narrative of neoliberal expansion is applicable in cities where crisis is so severe that economic growth seems highly unlikely i focus on detroit whose recent declaration of bankruptcy signals the recognition among local officials and elites that the city s decline cannot be reversed with out of the box neoliberal policies instead the city s bankruptcy precipitated a breakdown of an interscalar growth coalition and local actors have embraced a plan for detroit s future which diverges from austerity urbanism favoured by extra local investors in significant ways importantly local actors have embraced a plan that seeks to improve the quality of life for the city s residents in the context of irreversible degrowth i refer to this as degrowth machine politics and i ex

dynamics and seasonality in quarterly panel data this article presents an empirical analysis of the dynamics of individual earnings using spanish quarterly earnings i propose a new econometric methodology to control for the seasonality in my dataset moreover i apply this methodology to the study of earnings mobility in spain using transition probabilities among earnings quintiles for the period 1985 1996 i find substantial mobility from one year to the next however earnings changes are basically among adjacent quintiles workers with university education are more mobile than workers with primary and secondary education on the other hand i observe greater negative mobility among earnings quintiles and more persistence of low earnings situations in the 1990s especially for workers with primary education

is the glass steagall act justified a study of the u s experience with universal banking before the glass steagall act of 1933 removed commercial banks from the securities underwriting business we evaluate the argument for the separation of commercial and investment banking that conflicts of interest induce commercial banks to fool the public into investing in securities which turn out to be of low quality a comparison of the performance of securities underwritten by commercial and investment banks prior to the act shows no evidence of this instead the public appears to have rationally accounted for the possibility of conflicts of interest and this appears to have constrained the banks to underwrite high quality securities jel g21 g24 n22

the world financial crisis the world financial crisis of 2008 is a consequence of new financial technologies new accounting methods and new international linkages these developments have come at a time when governments have returned to an old fashioned freemarket philosophy this paper links the systemic financial economic crisis of 2008 to the new economy developments globalisation and policy philosophy perspectives of recent decades it raises the question of how to re establish confidence once traditional thinking has been questioned

degrowth from theory to practice abstract the collection of articles reviewed in this editorial presents an eclectic sample of the best contributions from the second international conference on degrowth exemplifying recent debates in the field and touching on different aspects of the multi dimensional transition at stake moving beyond theory and the construction of the degrowth proposal the articles in this special issue look at particular applications new methodologies and fresh policy options for example social enterprises are evaluated as primer candidates for a sustainable degrowth economy in the north lessons are also drawn from very different parts of the world such as cuba s experience with an oil and commodity shock to which it adapted through the introduction of ecological labour intensive agriculture in urban regions this special issue approaches from a degrowth perspective important sectoral issues in agriculture resource consumption and water the unsustainable fuel dependence of the spanish agrarian sector where the energy input for the production process is six times higher than the energy contained in finished food products is analysed in the context of the industrialization of food production rather than efficiency sufficiency in consumption is proposed as an organising societal principle and a call is made for stronger ngo action and coalition building in the direction of absolute rather than relative consumption reduction the obstacles to sufficiency policies are illustrated with a case study on water in the city of barcelona where a growth discourse is still dominant and a source of a technological and institutional deadlock against softer decentralized and more participatory forms of water management finally many of the contributions in this issue focus on work the policy option of a job guarantee scheme is examined as a tool to decouple jobs from economic growth and fiscal policy by bringing them to the realm of political rights this is complemented by a discussion of the social benefits of an amateur economy through work sharing and a socially beneficial reduction in labour productivity original data from barcelona analysed for this special issue shows that household activities an essential component of a more amateur economy have a much lower intensity of energy use than the paid sector delivery of equivalent services especially government and privatized caring services interesting research questions are identified concerning work under a degrowth trajectory not least whether reducing paid work will be possible in an energy scarce future put together the diverse contributions of this issue show that there is a vibrant and fertile degrowth research agenda with a range of open questions to which the community of this journal has much to offer

societal metabolism working hours and degrowth a comment on sorman and giampietro can we choose whether to degrow sorman and giampetro in this special issue argue that degrowth can only be forced upon us it will never be the outcome of voluntary or collective choice in this commentary i argue instead that although sooner or later we will have to degrow because of bio physical limitations we still have a choice of how to do it constructing a positive vision of degrowth as an inspirational political project that mobilizes citizens increases the likelihood of a prosperous way down i agree with the authors that in an energy scarce world we will have to work more to maintain the same level of material affluence but i contend that under conceivable conditions we might be equally happy with less work less energy and less material affluence a multi scalar analysis of societal metabolism is essential for the evaluation of degrowth policies and trajectories however unlike what sorman and giampietro suggest there is nothing in existing metabolic analyses that suggests that a prosperous degrowth trajectory is a priori impossible

determinants of income mobility and household poverty dynamics in south africa this article analyses household income mobility among africans in south africa s most populous province kwazulu natal between 1993 and 1998 compared to industrialised and most developing countries mobility has been quite high as might have been expected after the transition in south africa this finding is robust when measurement error is controlled for when disaggregating the sources of mobility it is found that demographic changes and employment changes account for most of the mobility observed which is related to rapidly shifting household boundaries and a very volatile labour market in an environment of high unemployment using a multivariate analysis it can be seen that transitory incomes play a large role four types of poverty traps are found associated with large initial household size poor initial education poor initial asset endowment and poor initial employment access that dominate the otherwise observed regression towards the mean

economic crisis and social learning for the provision of public services in two spanish municipalities economic crises pose challenges for the provision of public services but may also open up opportunities for social learning about how to achieve a sustainable society the main research question addressed in this paper is can economic crises catalyse social learning for a sustainable society the hypothesis of the paper is that social learning emerges in association with the reduction of consumption levels that follows degrowth or with the reconfiguration of infrastructure management practices and sustainable innovation that could lead to a transition to sustainability following this we empirically examine whether the crisis has led to social learning about the sustainable provision of public services in two similar municipalities in the north of spain after the economic crisis of 2008 we develop an interpretative analysis of individual experiences of learning from the crisis using a set of qualitative interviews with individuals who were involved in key decisions about public service delivery during or immediately after the crisis the analysis suggests that there has been a broader cultural change which is challenging institutional models of regional development that there has been a drive towards greater resource efficiency and that some opportunities have opened for entrepreneurs to develop sustainable innovations the findings support the view that the crisis may have fostered learning responses that could lead to either degrowth or a sustainable transition

environment versus growth a criticism of degrowth and a plea for a growth in recent debates on environmental problems and policies the strategy of degrowth has appeared as an alternative to the paradigm of economic growth this new notion is critically evaluated by considering five common interpretations of it one conclusion is that these multiple interpretations make it an ambiguous and rather confusing concept another is that degrowth may not be an effective let alone an efficient strategy to reduce environmental pressure it is subsequently argued that a growth i e being indifferent about growth is a more logical social aim to substitute for the current goal of economic growth given that gdp per capita is a very imperfect indicator of social welfare in addition focusing ex ante on public policy is considered to be a strategy which ultimately is more likely to obtain the necessary democratic political support than an ex ante explicit degrowth strategy in line with this a policy package is proposed which consists of six elements some of which relate to concerns raised by degrowth supporters

caught in a trap wage mobility in great britain 1975 1994 in this paper i study wage mobility in great britain using the new earnings surveys of 1975 94 and the british household panel surveys of 1991 94 measuring mobility in terms of decile transition matrices i find a considerable degree of immobility within the wage distribution from one year to the next mobility is higher when measured over longer time periods those in lower deciles in the wage distribution are much more likely to exit into unemployment and non employment measuring mobility by studying changes in individuals actual percentile rankings in the wage distribution i find evidence that short run mobility rates have fallen since the late 1970s this has potentially important welfare implications given the rise in cross section earnings inequality observed over the last two decades copyright 2000 by the london school of economics and political science

how much income mobility is there in britain using the first four waves of the british household panel survey 1991 4 and a variety of methods we show that there is much mobility in household net income from one year to the next in britain however most income changes from one year to the next are not very large and when incomes are longitudinally averaged so that transitory variations are smoothed out substantial permanent income differences are revealed there is some evidence of greater mobility for those in the tails of the income distribution relative to the middle and for elderly persons compared to non elderly persons

the new urban politics as a politics of carbon control the new urban politics nup literature has helped to draw attention to a new generation of entrepreneurial urban regimes involved in the competition to attract investment to cities interurban competition often had negative environmental consequences for the urban living place yet knowledge of the environment was not very central to understanding the nup entrepreneurial urban regimes today are struggling to deal with climate change and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions carbon reduction strategies could have profound implications for interurban competition and the politics of urban development this paper explores the rise of a distinctive low carbon urban polity carbon control and examines its potential ramifications for a new environmental politics of urban development nepud the nepud signals the growing centrality of carbon control in discourses strategies and struggles around urban development using examples from cities in the us and europe the paper examines how these new environmental

a cross national comparison of permanent inequality in the united states and germany traditional cross sectional measures find greater inequality in the united states than in industrialized western european countries but are unable to distinguish transitory from permanent inequality with longitudinal data we measure cross sectional inequality during the 1980s using the shorrocks measure of income stability to find the degree to which single period measures exaggerate permanent inequality surprisingly given the smaller social welfare system and the less restrictive labor markets in the united states we find that both single period inequality and the share of that inequality that persists over time are greater in the united states than in germany

economic mobility along the business cycle the case of peru the performance of latin american countries in reducing poverty and expanding the middle class has been remarkable by taking a close look at the peruvian experience we examine how this aggregate

the wellbeing consumption paradox happiness health income and carbon emissions in growing versus non growing economies abstract we investigate the relationships between carbon intensive consumption and two dimensions of human wellbeing physical health and happiness for 120 countries over the 2005 2015 period long term 10 year relationships are analysed to re assess the happiness income paradox i e easterlin paradox which states that changes in national income and happiness are correlated in the short term but not in the long term we broaden the scope of easterlin s analysis in two novel ways first the evidence for a health income paradox is explored second a parallel analysis using national consumption based carbon footprints instead of income is conducted to explore complementary relationships with both of the wellbeing indicators we show that countries with declining per capita consumption measured in terms of either gross domestic product gdp or carbon footprint have significant reductions in average happiness in contrast countries with growing per capita consumption have no significant change in happiness there is no relationship between changes in per capita consumption and health irrespective of whether gdp or carbon footprint is growing or not these findings apply to rich and poor countries alike and are robust to the inclusion of other social indicators such as social support and autonomy we find that happiness is less sensitive to declines in carbon footprint than declines in gdp thus lending support to calls for decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth however observed decoupling trends are insufficient to meet climate targets if the 2 target is to be met without a decline in wellbeing then either decoupling must be vastly improved or happiness levels must be made less sensitive to declining consumption

strong sustainable consumption governance precondition for a degrowth path this paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance sustainable consumption and degrowth interestingly these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable development the paper argues that this lack of connection is due to a predominance of perspectives in sustainable consumption governance that focus almost exclusively on questions of efficiency gains this weak sustainable consumption governance however is not able to address the challenges to sustainable development arising from overconsumption in general or the rebound effect and distributive issues in particular in contrast a strong sustainable consumption perspective provides a basis for a promising inquiry into the linkages between consumption and sustainable development as well as a fruitful exchange with degrowth specifically it allows the delineation of relevant insights on the role of values in governance obstacles to political reform and promising political strategies for the degrowth debate and literature

the economics of degrowth economic degrowth is ecologically desirable and possibly inevitable but under what conditions can it become socially sustainable how can we have full employment and economic stability without growth what will happen to public spending and to public debt how would production be organised in a degrowing economy and under what plausible socio political conditions could such grand changes happen standard economic theories and models ignore these questions for them economic growth is an axiomatic necessity this article reviews recent contributions in the economics of degrowth and identifies research avenues for ecological economists

financial and world economic crisis what did economists contribute in this paper we deal with two questions 1 what are the origins of the current financial crisis and 2 what did economists contribute or why did economists fail to provide a convincing answer for the origins of the crisis and possible solutions to overcome it the economics profession apparently was unaware of the looming worldwide financial and economic crisis and significantly underestimated its global dimensions and consequences a first and preliminary analysis is undertaken to explore reasons for these failures we conclude by pointing to some consequences for economics as well as for economic policy

in defence of degrowth abstract this article defends the proposal of sustainable degrowth a starting premise is that resource and co2 limits render further growth of the economy unsustainable if degrowth is inevitable the question is how it can become socially sustainable i e a prosperous and stable rather than a catastrophic descent pricing mechanisms alone are unlikely to secure smooth adaptation a full ensemble of environmental and redistributive policies is required including among others policies for a basic income reduction of working hours environmental and consumption taxes and controls on advertising policies like these that threaten to harm the economy are less and less likely to be implemented within existing market economies whose basic institutions financial property political and redistributive depend on and mandate continuous economic growth an intertwined cultural and political change is needed that will embrace degrowth as a positive social development and reform those institutions that make growth an imperative sustainable degrowth is therefore not just a structuring concept it is a radical political project that offers a new story and a rallying slogan for a social coalition built around the aspiration to construct a society that lives better with less

degrowth taking stock and reviewing an emerging academic paradigm degrowth has evolved within a decade from an activist movement into a multi disciplinary academic paradigm however an overview taking stock of the peer refereed degrowth literature is yet missing here we review 91 articles that were published between 2006 and 2015 we find that the academic degrowth discourse occupies a small but expanding niche at the intersection of social and applied environmental sciences the discourse is shaped by authors from high income mainly mediterranean countries until 2012 articles largely constitute conceptual essays endorsed by normative claims more recently degrowth has branched out into modelling empirical assessments and the study of concrete implementations authors tend to agree in that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet and that degrowth requires far reaching societal change whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally imposed inevitability constitutes a major debate among degrowth thinkers we argue that the academic discourse could benefit from rigid hypotheses testing through input output modelling material flow analysis life cycle assessments or social surveys by analyzing the potentials for non market value creation and identifying concrete well being benefits the degrowth discourse could receive wider public support and contribute to a paradigmatic change in the social sciences

tracking costs of time and money how accounting periods affect mental accounting after people incur costs to get future benefits they usually track these costs in their mental accounts and are keen to receive the benefits when they become available we introduce the notion that costs and benefits can occur either in the same accounting period day season etc or in different periods our key argument is that monetary costs are tracked across accounting periods but that temporal costs are written off at the end of the period in which they are incurred thus accounting periods lead to a time money asymmetry in the tracking of costs and consequently in the likelihood of seeking benefits in a laboratory study an online panel study and a field study with movie theater patrons we demonstrate how this relationship among accounting periods cost tracking and benefit seeking is different for time than for money our findings offer insights into the sunk cost effect time money differences and mental accounting

grassroots localisation the scalar potential of and limits of the transition approach to climate change and resource constraint this paper engages with the progressive politics of climate change and resource constraint developed by the transition movement which looks to develop a positive local politics of the transition to a low carbon economy and society at the heart of this politics is a vision of economic localisation rooted in a geographical imaginary of market towns with agricultural hinterlands consequently the question of how the transition model can be applied in urban settings has not been clear leading to the implicit assumption that urban transition initiatives are more complex and difficult in contrast this paper argues that the plasticity of transition politics means that in some cases an urban context might be more productive for the development of transition initiatives because it allows for a greater diversity of political action as well as providing a density of networks and resources that can be critical for the survival of grassroots interventions

the dynamics of low income in rural areas phimister e upward r and vera t oscano e 2000 the dynamics of low income in rural areas reg studies 34 407 417 this paper provides a picture of the dynamics of low income in rural areas by comparing a rural sample with a non rural sample using the british household panel survey the paper considers income distributions and inequality low income mobility the distribution of low income spells the characteristics of those on low incomes and possible trigger events associated with low income entry and exit across the two samples although in absolute terms somewhat less important than in non rural areas the results confirm that low income in rural areas is significant and emphasize a number of important dynamic aspects of the problem such as the extent of persistent low income among the rural poor phimister e upward r et vera toscano e 2000 la dynamique du faible revenu dans les zones rurales reg studies 34 407 417 a partir du british household panel survey un sondage aupres des m

degrowth initiatives in the urban water sector a social multi criteria evaluation of non conventional water alternatives in metropolitan barcelona abstract debates on degrowth have mainly focused on theoretical issues specially around the unsustainability of the current economic model based on growth along those lines some scholars have dealt with the opportunities and barriers to voluntary social action for degrowth at a general level notwithstanding the key importance of such debates we argue that local strategies to move towards degrowth are still to be explored departing from the specific case of water in this paper we interrogate the compatibility of non conventional centralised and decentralised water supply technologies desalination reclaimed water reuse greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting with degrowth principles taking as a case study the metropolitan area of barcelona spain a social multi criteria evaluation has been performed to explore the feasibility desirability and acceptability of both models the paper aims to explore the pros and cons of the different water alternatives in two different and hypothetic societies one based on growth business as usual and one based on degrowth the technical analysis reveals that rainwater harvesting and reclaimed water reuse are the most preferred alternatives from a degrowth perspective while reclaimed water reuse and desalination are the most preferred alternatives from a growth perspective the social multi criteria analysis also serves to unveil which social actors may favour or block the adoption of each alternative notwithstanding that most social groups see desalination as the least desired option this is the hegemonic non conventional source in spain which evidences the prevalence of growth discourses in water management local decision makers city council managers and environmental groups clearly opt for the promotion of rainwater harvesting and as a result they appear as potential allies to promote degrowth in water consumption the social multi criteria evaluation helps to elucidate the main challenges that need to be addressed in the pursuit of a more sustainable and equitable water management

fear and greed in financial markets a clinical study of day traders we investigate several possible links between psychological factors and trading performance in a sample of 80 anonymous day traders using daily emotional state surveys over a five week period as well as personality inventory surveys we construct measures of personality traits and emotional states for each subject and correlate these measures with daily normalized profits and losses records we find that subjects whose emotional reaction to monetary gains and losses was more intense on both the positive and negative side exhibited significantly worse trading performance psychological traits derived from a standardized personality inventory survey do not reveal any specific trader personality profile raising the possibility that trading skills may not necessarily be innate and that different personality types may be able to perform trading functions equally well after proper instruction and practice this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

psychological expected utility theory and anticipatory feelings we extend expected utility theory to situations in which agents experience feelings of anticipation prior to the resolution of uncertainty we show how these anticipatory feelings may result in time inconsistency we provide an example from portfolio theory to illustrate the potential impact of anticipation on asset prices

de growth and welfare in an equilibrium model with heterogeneous consumers this paper studies equilibrium growth and voluntary degrowth allowing for heterogeneous and time varying preferences the approach is based on applying a dynamic equilibrium model with externalities in production consumption and leisure preference heterogeneity regarding status competition is modeled by asymmetric consumption externality parameters whereas heterogeneity regarding voluntary simplicity is incorporated by allowing for agent specific restrictions on maximum consumption equilibrium is studied in terms of a balanced growth path bgp numerical examples suggest that degrowth triggered by voluntary simplicity by a subset of consumers less affected by status competition has a positive effect on the aggregate welfare under externalities in consumption and leisure a reduction in status competition increases the aggregate welfare and reduces the equilibrium growth rate simulations suggest that a time varying equilibrium in the heterogeneous preference model with two consumer classes is well approximated by a constant bgp

sustainability of catch up growth in the extended european union abstract this paper analyses the compatibility of growth and sustainability in the european union eu including a new eu member states from the former soviet bloc eu 10 the extension of eu borders financial and technological support stimulated rapid convergence and decreased the socio economic differences between the old eu 15 and newly accepted eu member states the transition from a command to a market economy resulted in the remarkable increase in resource efficiency and other positive aspects of sustainability along with 1 5 times increased gdp final energy consumption decreased by 20 greenhouse gases emissions by 25 and the emissions of acidifying compounds were halved during the period from the collapse of former soviet bloc to the recent economic crisis however the per capita production and consumption in eu 10 is still approximately half that of eu 15 and further catch up growth should be expected ensuring that economic and social cohesion is not achieved at the expense of increased environmental impact decelerated economic growth is a feature characteristic of mature economies and the gdp growth rate in eu 15 states decreased almost 2 5 times during the last 50 year similar trends are characteristic of other developed countries and market economies have adapted to this trend even with a decelerated growth rate the ecological footprint in developed countries currently exceeds three and more times the allowable limits and almost two thirds of the ecological footprint relates to traditional energy de fossilisation by a greater increase in energy efficiency use of renewable energy and more intense material recovery is the most promising option for reducing the ecological footprint of these countries deceleration of the economic growth rate supplemented by the aforementioned options is a hard but realistic track leading to the reduction of ecological footprint in developed countries to allowable limits without radical de growth in consumption and production that can result in unpredictable and unacceptable consequences

a second chance at success a political economy perspective abstract this paper characterizes a stationary markov perfect political equilibrium where agents vote over income taxation that distorts educational investment agents become rich or poor through educational investment and the poor have a second chance at success the results show the following concerning the cost of a second chance first when the cost is low the economy is characterized by high levels of upward mobility and inequality and a low tax burden supported by the poor with prospects for upward mobility second when the cost is high there are multiple equilibria with various patterns of upward mobility inequality and redistribution numerical examples show that the shift from a high cost economy to a low cost economy may reduce social welfare

degrowth and public health in cuba lessons from the past after the collapse of the communist bloc in the 1990s cuba experienced a severe economic crisis in its drastic reduction in fuels its negative economic growth data due to declining production and consumption rates and in its adaptations to shrinking resources and to local and labor intensive production modes this so called special period had elements of an experiment in degrowth looking at economic social and agricultural reactions to the crisis this paper identifies a consistent commitment to social services a shift in agricultural methods and a high level of social capital as main reasons for this outcome balancing this result with negative implications of the crisis notably the lack of political freedom and of long term sustainability the paper seeks to draw lessons for future degrowth scenarios

a meta analysis investigation of the direction of the energy gdp causal relationship implications for the growth degrowth dialogue abstract the complex relation between energy use and the economic process has long attracted attention issues such as the scarcity of energy resources energy theory of value degrowth and a growth approaches are closely related to the relationship between energy and development the present study traces the implications of the energy gdp causality dialogue for the context of the growth degrowth debate where the energy development link plays a decisive role in that context the present research investigates the possible existence of a fundamental macro direction of causality between energy use and economic growth that is not influenced by study specific characteristics and events towards this objective we perform a meta analysis that takes into account 158 studies on causality between energy and gdp covering the period 1978 2011 this is the first time to our knowledge that meta analysis has been applied to investigate the direction of the energy and gdp causal relationship the meta analysis results neither support the existence of a fundamental macro direction nor the so called neutrality hypothesis e gdp in the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth

assessing the degrowth discourse a review and analysis of academic degrowth policy proposals abstract debates on ecological and social limits to economic growth and new ways to deal with resource scarcity without compromising human well being have re emerged in the last few years central to many of these is a call for a degrowth approach in this paper a framework is developed to support a systematic analysis of degrowth in the academic literature this article attempts to present a clearer notion of what the academic degrowth literature explores by identifying organising and analysing a set of proposals for action retrieved from a selection of articles the framework is applied to classify proposals according to their alignment to ecological economics policy objectives sustainable scale fair distribution and efficient allocation type of approach top down versus bottom up and geographical focus local national or international a total of 128 peer reviewed articles focused on degrowth were reviewed and 54 that include proposals for action were analysed the proposals identified align with three broad goals 1 reduce the environmental impact of human activities 2 redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries and 3 promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society the findings indicate that the majority of degrowth proposals are national top down approaches focusing on government as a major driver of change rather than local bottom up approaches as advocated by many degrowth proponents the most emphasised aspects in the degrowth literature are related to social equity closely followed by environmental sustainability topics such as population growth and the implications of degrowth for developing nations are largely neglected and represent an important area for future research moreover there is a need for a deeper analysis of how degrowth proposals would act in combination

social enterprises and non market capitals a path to degrowth the aim of this paper is to look at alternatives to the classic for profit shareholding enterprise and to suggest how such alternatives might be supported within the current economic system another aim is to link the social enterprise and degrowth discourses we first re define the economy as including non monetised sectors the core economy and the economy of nature and discuss the liminal zone of not for profit and not only for profit organisations we then look at social enterprise definitions from a degrowth perspective and explain why the dimensions of scale place environment and provisioning patterns need more space in the social enterprise discourse after that we define non market capitals as capitals taken out of the market and placed under local member democratic control and explain their importance in a degrowth economy we give examples of non market capitals and suggest a model involving mutual support between primary and secondary social enterprises finally we suggest areas where more research is needed in this emerging field of inquiry

international income mobility abstract we perform a novel analysis of the international mobility of per capita gnp we find general but not unambiguous support for the notion that world income mobility increased between 1972 and 1992 counterpointing the increased inequality over this period

the paradox of growth critique narrative analysis of the finnish sustainable consumption and production debate abstract academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate to date however literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention this article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of finland s committee on sustainable consumption and production narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases by tracing and comparing the different stories non stories and counterstories in the debate the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions we found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth bound economic system from the perspective of narrative policy analysis however this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which paradoxically leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories we suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way

less is more the influence of aspirations and priming on well being abstract if resource consumption is to be reduced through economic de growth individuals in industrialized countries may have to accept a reduction in their consumption levels in democratic societies implementing this process requires the consent of a majority of the population however as long as people have high reference levels of consumption lower consumption will induce feelings of loss and hence evoke resistance this paper summarizes recent experimental evidence on some of the factors that determine the utility costs involved in decreasing consumption the results suggest that the acceptance of economic de growth would be facilitated if people s material aspirations were moderated and the extent to which material achievements are emphasized in our daily environment were reduced an analysis of the financial and economic crisis that developed during 2008 suggests that it will not contribute to either of these points rather by increasing the public s focus on the economic sphere even beyond pre crisis levels it may lead to a further decrease in the acceptance of de growth policies in the population

when faced with income and asset shocks do poor rural households in vietnam smooth food consumption or assets abstractvietnamese rural households are exposed to severe covariate and idiosyncratic shocks however these households are remarkably resilient and have steadily increased real income and consumption over the survey period 2006 to 2012 to explain household strategies to cope with shocks we test three theoretical models the permanent income hypothesis pih complete market hypothesis cmh and asset smoothing theory ast there is support for ast as households smooth productive assets rather than consumption and for cmh as households smooth consumption against idiosyncratic but not covariate shocks there is no support for pih

organization structure and credibility evidence from commercial bank securities activities before the glass steagall act we examine the two ways in which us commercial banks organized their investment banking operations before the 1933 glass steagall act forced the banks to leave the securities business as an internal securities department within the bank and as a separately incorporated affiliate with its own board of directors while departments underwrote seemingly higher quality firms and securities than did comparable affiliates the departments obtained lower prices for the issues they underwrote the higher risk premium associated with the internal department is consistent with investors discounting for the greater likelihood of conflicts of interest when lending and underwriting are within the same structure as a result commercial banks evolved toward choosing the separate affiliate structure our results suggest that internal structure is an effective commitment mechanism and absent other distortions market pressures would propel banks to adopt an internal structure that would address regulators concerns about conflicts of interest

why environmental sustainability can most probably not be attained with growing production the concepts of welfare economic growth production environmentally sustainable national income environmental sustainability environmental function and asymmetric entering are defined because the confusion about these concepts hampers sound information based on these concepts the arguments are enumerated why it is plausible that environmental sustainability most probably cannot be attained with a growing production level national income ni and why broad acceptance of a lower production level meaning de growth of production will make attaining this goal much easier or at least possible some consequences of unsustainable development are provided and the alleged conflict between employment and environment is refuted the conclusion is that our planet is threatened by a wrong belief in a wrongly formulated growth

longitudinal analysis of income related health inequality this paper considers the characterisation and measurement of income related health inequality using longitudinal data the paper elucidates the nature of the jones and lopez nicolas 2004 index of health related income mobility and explains the negative values of the index that have been reported in all the empirical applications to date the paper further presents an alternative approach to the analysis of longitudinal data that brings out complementary aspects of the evolution of income related health inequalities over time in particular we propose a new index of income related health mobility that measures whether the pattern of health changes is biased in favour of those with initially high or low incomes we illustrate our work by investigating mobility in the general health questionnaire measure of psychological well being over the first nine waves of the british household panel survey from 1991 to 1999

money reform and the eurozone crisis panacea utopia or grassroots alternative the economic crisis that broke out in 2007 2008 and the ongoing crisis in the eurozone has given a new urgency to discussions about alternatives to capitalism and a new salience to proposals for monetary reform and for grassroots economic alternatives using marx and engel s concept of utopianism as an analytical tool to distinguish between what is the work of cranks and what of brave heretics the paper examines four monetary responses to the crisis 1 positive money s call for a state monopoly on money issuance 2 the reintroduction of national currencies in particular the drachma 3 proposals for state issued parallel currencies and 4 grassroots or subaltern money networks of various types the paper argues that the dominance of neoliberal ideology at a european union level means that proposals for monetary reform at the international and national level are unlikely to be taken seriously by elites and consequently seem utopian in marxian terms there seems to be little political will to engage with the complexities of and potential opportunities of a more diverse monetary architecture within the eurozone and a perceived need to discipline potentially irresponsible governments like greece s syriza although responsible actors in the north of the eurozone get more leeway the potential of grassroots alternatives is also too often overstated while alternative currency networks developed as part of the greek crisis are not particularly well developed alternative currency networks could work as sites of innovation normalising the idea that there are progressive alternatives to eurozone breakup

earnings mobility and measurement error a pseudo panel approach the degree of mobility in incomes is often seen as an important measure of the equality of opportunity in a society and of the flexibility and freedom of its labor market but estimation of mobility using panel data is biased by the presence of measurement error and non random attrition from the panel this paper shows that dynamic pseudo panel methods can be used to consistently estimate measures of absolute and conditional mobility in the presence of non classical measurement errors these methods are applied to data on earnings from a mexican quarterly rotating panel absolute mobility in earnings is found to be very low in mexico suggesting that the high level of inequality found in the cross section will persist over time however the paper finds conditional mobility to be high so that households are able to recover quickly from earnings shocks these findings suggest a role for policies which address underlying inequalities in earnings opportunities