on the practical limits to substitution abstract this paper considers the arguments for weak vs strong sustainability the weak sustainability position held by many mainstream neoclassical economists such as solow and weitzman is that almost all kinds of natural capital can be substituted by man made capital the contrary position known as strong sustainability holds that many of the most fundamental services provided by nature cannot be replaced by services produced by humans or man made systems the paper discusses the limits of substitution from a physical point of view it concludes that while there is considerable scope for substitution in some domains the limits to substitutability in the medium term at least are real and important in effect the paper supports the strong sustainability position

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

carrying capacity reconsidered from malthus population theory to cultural carrying capacity in this paper the concept of carrying capacity is investigated to provide an improved understanding about its contribution to solve environmental problems light is shed on its form interpretation and application in biology demography applied and human ecology the analysis begins with an examination of the bedrock of carrying capacity which is malthus population theory and its mathematical formulation the logistic growth equation the investigation shows malthus thinking to be both political and normative furthermore the rigid assumptions of the logistic equation and the uncertainty of its terms are found not to allow an unequivocal calculation and prediction of the upper limits carrying capacity of population growth it is illustrated that in ecology carrying capacity focuses on the quality of an ecosystem pressures on it and corresponding population numbers and less on equilibrium of populations as in biology it is shown that carrying capacity when applied in fields where human activity or human aims are involved is a complex normative concept influenced by ecological dynamics human values and aims institutional settings and management practices however it is demonstrated that the discussion about institutional settings aims and values does not take place as much as necessary for its useful application and operationalization in such fields instead authors fall back on sustainability environmental standards or resilience the main contribution of carrying capacity in applied and human ecology is as a political concept generally highlighting that exponential growth and thus environmental pressures have to be curbed carrying capacity is far from being a universal constraint operationalization will continue to be hampered as long as agreements are missing about which social carrying capacity is to be opted for and when it is considered to have been transgressed

eco thermodynamics economics and the second law the laws of physics especially the first and second laws of thermodynamics have significant implications for economic theory the major implications of the first law conservation of mass energy are straightforward and have been discussed at length elsewhere in brief raw material inputs to economic processes are not consumed having been extracted from the environment in the first place they eventually return to the environment as wastes the economic implications of the second law entropy law are far more subtle there is considerable literature initiated by the work of georgescu roegen on the supposed constraints on economic growth imposed by the fact that economic processes utilize low entropy raw materials fossil fuels and high grade metal ores and discard high entropy wastes however as a practical matter the flux of available low entropy energy exergy from the sun is extremely large and certainly adequate to sustain economic activity in the solar system indefinitely even though fossil fuel and metal ore stocks may eventually be exhausted it is argued in this paper that the real economic significance of the second law lies in the fact that exergy is i not conserved and ii is a useful common measure of resource quality as well as quantity applicable to both materials and energy thus exergy can be used to measure and compare resource inputs and outputs including wastes and losses this is potentially important in itself moreover since exergy is not conserved it is truly consumed i e used up in economic processes hence exergy is no less a factor of production than labor or capital this fact has strong implications for economic growth theory especially with regard to assessing the role of technical progress

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

this time it s different an inevitable decline in world petroleum production will keep oil product prices high causing military conflicts and shifting wealth and power from democracies to authoritarian regimes abstract there is virtual agreement among geologists that world production of conventional oil will peak at some point in the future oil after all is a finite resource while demand will only grow over time geologists disagree however exactly when the peak will occur using data from the international energy agency the us department of energy the association for the study of peak oil and gas and petroleum industry sources we argue that conventional oil production will reach a worldwide maximum within the next 5 10 years earlier than generally estimated thus leaving a very short time frame within which to plan for conversion to alternative sources of energy unless planning is initiated immediately the united states and other western democracies will see their positions in the global economy undercut as military conflicts over limited energy resources increase and wealth and power are shifted to authoritarian regimes in russia venezuela africa and the middle east

capitalist diversity and de growth trajectories to steady state economies abstract growth critical scholarship has done much to both expose the environmentally unsustainable nature of the capitalist growth economies of the overdeveloped part of the world and to develop an alternative vision of a de growth transition leading to a steady state economy however this scholarship fails to adequately take into consideration that if planned de growth actually materialised it would do so in societies that differ considerably from one another and that this would have implications both for the transition processes and the nature of their outcomes in other words not enough importance is ascribed to capitalist diversity and the nature of institutional change in the growth critical literature against this background the purpose of the present article is to make the concrete utopia of de growth scholars and steady state economists more specific by utilising insights from scholarship on capitalist diversity and institutional change on the basis of a typology of different models of capitalism the article suggests that if de growth transitions took place they would take different forms and lead to a variety of types of steady state economies sses to illustrate this point three ideal typical sses are delineated

diverging pathways to overcoming the environmental crisis a critique of eco modernism from a technology assessment perspective abstract the current controversies on sustainable growth green growth and degrowth cover many issues in the relations between human behavior societal regulation and technology in face of the need to overcome the environmental crisis the point of departure of this paper is the observation that the roles of technology and of technological progress in realizing an ecologically sound development often are simply taken as mere assumptions or else are taken for granted the objective of this paper is to critically scrutinize assumptions and expectations of the eco modernist approach from the perspective of technology assessment in the context of the debate on growth and degrowth by reconstructing the basic arguments assumptions and premises of the eco modernist approach and their critical assessment the analysis culminates in the diagnosis of the eco modernist approach being morally hazardous because it expects to overcome the ecological crisis by technological progress and its acceleration only ignoring the ambivalences of technology and the issue of unintended side effects following this result conclusions will be drawn in two directions from the experience of technology assessment for degrowth and from degrowth thinking for technology assessment

surrendering to growth the european union s goals for research and technology in the horizon 2020 framework abstract the european union is one of the major global players in environmental protection and sustainability policy and increasingly addresses themes such as human wellbeing global justice and development grounded in the degrowth literature this paper asks how the european union measures progress economic development and the relevance of environmental protection specifically this article aims at tracing degrowth elements in the horizon 2020 program i e the research and innovation agenda and funding scheme of the union which constitutes one of the european union s major instruments for steering economic development employing a frame analysis this research detects a minor agenda pointing beyond conventional growth perspectives however conventional growth remains the central focus in the horizon 2020 framework even where green growth measures are discussed this research shows that this pattern is especially evident in technology policy and schemes related to information and communication technology in particular the article reflects on the rationales for why the european union pursues only a minor degrowth agenda it points to a neoliberal meta frame and to the effects of path dependency related to the union s common market conceived of as a driver of prosperity finally the paper identifies comparative policy analysis as a promising area for deeper integration of degrowth theory in political science research

measuring progress in the degrowth transition to a steady state economy article i nfo in order to determine whether degrowth is occurring or how close national economies are to the concept of a steady state economy clear indicators are required within this paper i analyse four indicator approaches that could be used 1 gross domestic product 2 the index of sustainable economic welfare 3 biophysical and social indicators and 4 a composite indicator i conclude that separate biophysical and social indicators represent the best approach but a unifying conceptual framework is required to choose appropriate indicators and interpret the relationships between them i propose a framework based on ends and means and a set of biophysical and social indicators within this framework the biophysical indicators are derived from herman daly s definition of a steady state economy and measure the major stocks and flows in the economy environment system the social indicators are based on the stated goals of the degrowth

deceleration of economic growth the main course seeking sustainability in developed countries abstract deceleration of economic growth is a characteristic feature of developed countries percentage gross domestic product gdp growth rate in the old organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries has decreased approximately 2 3 times over the last 50 years and countries have managed successfully to adopt this trend the largest reduction of gdp growth rate was observed in countries such as japan where the biocapacity exceedance was the largest in addition the analysis of long term changes of gdp and self reported life satisfaction in developed countries supports easterlin s paradox indicating that richer people do not feel more satisfied with their lives however people from countries with higher per capita gdp feel more satisfied at the same time a statistically insignificant correlation was detected between gdp growth rate and life satisfaction supporting a conclusion that in the developed countries further economic growth does not increase people s well being this suggests that decelerating the rate of economic growth gradually approaching the zero growth steady state phase is the natural way towards sustainability and it does not contradict the well being objective in developed countries especially ones with high biocapacity exceedance

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

south korean green growth and the jevons paradox an assessment with democratic and degrowth policy recommendations the policy instruments at the core of the notion of green growth are central to south korea s national strategy for green growth nsgg 1 green stimulus packages 2 price based or market corrective policies and 3 green research and development to bring about a technological shift that increases resource efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources this assessment of the nsgg explores the potentials and limitations of 3 in light of the jevons paradox the commonly found association between improved efficiency and increased resource use greenhouse gas ghg emissions and total energy use have increased since the implementation of the nsgg despite overall improvements in energy efficiency we argue that the jevons paradox is a fundamental limitation of the nsgg and suggest policy alternatives to the nsgg 1 increased public participation in environmental decision making and 2 economic degrowth

community renewable energy at a crossroads a think piece on degrowth technology and the democratization of the german energy system abstract degrowth activists and scholars have questioned society s current levels of material throughput and energy use the energy sector is at the core of any modern economy and germany serves as an international showcase for the transition of a large industrialized economy to a low carbon energy system diverse actors organizational models and technologies have contributed to the initiation of germany s energy transition through a wide range of community renewable energy projects the think piece investigates how far these diverse actors embrace the aims of the degrowth movement it also provides a critical account of on the ground realities through six hypotheses and contrasts them with claims made by the degrowth movement it is suggested that community renewable energy projects are at a crossroads while many projects have familiarized thousands of people with alternative economic models there is little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology consumption or equity in conclusion a major effort is needed to open initiatives to less affluent actors oppose recent trends of commodification and prevent community renewable energy projects from being engrossed by the dominant political and economic system

a degrowth transition pathways for the degrowth niche to replace the capitalist growth regime abstract facing the intertwined environmental social and economic crisis requires us to seriously consider alternatives to the current capitalist system including the emerging concept of degrowth existing understandings of degrowth have focused on characterizing the shape the key elements and the proposals for a degrowth society however its dynamic and evolving nature as an alternative vision of the future and the dynamics of a transition toward degrowth are inadequately considered this paper seeks to address this conceptual gap through a reconceptualisation of degrowth as a radical niche innovation to the capitalist growth regime by extending the multi level perspective framework to the capitalist growth system we undertake a critical reconsideration of the multi level perspective exposing key assumptions of this framework grounded in capitalist economic theory through this we propose a pluriversal potential pathway for change to consider this further a bibliometric analysis is used to measure and visualize research activity in degrowth as a proxy for the processes of development of the degrowth niche then we return to the multi level perspective to consider two potential pathways for change involving the degrowth niche and the capitalist growth regime finally we point to areas for further research that build on this new conceptualisation of a degrowth transition

technology appropriation in a de growing economy this article proposes a concept of technology appropriation as a means of ideological repurposing of technology in a de growing economy its economic and institutional foundations are set forth using an endogenous theory of economic development in the spirit of marx schumpeter and veblen technological and institutional change lead interdependently to the emergence of socio technical complexes which are subject to ideological appropriation these complexes are analyzed as actor networks from an ontological perspective and exemplified using special cases in the information and communication technologies icts the approach contributes to synthesizing critical political economy with actor network theory technology appropriation is elaborated as a means of repurposing existing technologies in terms of recombination with an emphasis on the strategy of habilitation this political economic strategy delivers new insights for a solidary mode of economic reproduction in a low carbon de growing economy

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

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

macroeconomic modelling under energy constraints global low carbon transition scenarios abstract integrated assessment models provide a framework to study sustainability transitions and their economic impacts models seldom consider energy constraints taking supply availability for granted and thus suggesting a mere change in the energy mix from non renewables to renewables in order to address these limitations a macro economic module within a broader system dynamics model medeas has been developed the model has been run for the whole world from 1995 to 2050 under three different scenarios business as usual bau considering no further transition policies and keeping current trends green growth gg undertaking the low carbon transition according to the paris agreement set of policies and with high gdp growth standards and post growth pg testing the sustainability transition under a gdp non growth degrowth approach the results reveal the conflict between economic growth climate policy and the sustainability of resources whereas a bau approach would not even be an option to achieve climate goals a gg view would not only face the downsizing of economic output but neither would it be able to achieve the 2 c objective the success of the pg approach in meeting emissions objectives suggests a redirection from economic growth policies to an industrial policy that incorporates efficiency and redistribution

not just a work permit eu citizenship and the consumption behavior of documented and undocumented immigrants this paper explores the impact of the 2007 european union enlargement on the consumption behavior of immigrant households using data from a unique italian survey and a difference in differences approach we find that the enlargement induced a significant consumption increase for the immigrant households from new member states both in the short and in the medium run this enlargement effect cannot be attributed to the mere legalization as it concerns both undocumented and documented immigrants albeit through different channels detailed information on immigrants legal status undocumented documented and sector of employment informal formal allows us to shed light on the exact mechanisms following the enlargement previously undocumented immigrants experienced an increase in the labor income by moving from the informal towards the formal economy whereas immigrants who were already working legally in italy benefitted from the increased probability of getting a permanent contract enhanced employment stability in turn reduced the uncertainty about future labor income leading to an increase in documented immigrants consumption expenditure

capital controls and foreign direct investment abstract this paper examines the effect of three types of capital control policies on fdi a the existence of multiple exchange rates b restrictions on capital account and c restrictions on the repatriation of export proceeds we find that the impact of capital controls on fdi varies by region and has changed over time in the 1970s and 1980s none of the policies had a significant impact on fdi in the 1990s all three were significant furthermore capital controls have no effect on fdi to sub saharan africa and the middle east but affects fdi to east asia and latin america adversely

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

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

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

macroeconomic narratives in a world of crises an analysis of stories about solving the system crisis since the financial crisis in 2008 a series of publications on macroeconomic responses to the compound crises of the economy and the environment have emerged under labels such as green new deal green growth and the great transition attempts at offering coherent responses to the crises have been made these responses have in common that they all present a large number of policy proposals for ways in which to solve the current crises and achieve a sustainable economy this article provides a mapping of a selection of such responses and an analysis of their content the analysis combines discourse theory and narrative analysis and investigates discourses by studying the narratives they produce the study thus contributes to the long line of analyses on discourses on sustainable economy empirically by investigating and analysing a number of macroeconomic proposals for solving the system crisis and theoretically by elaborating on the concept of narrative dynamics in relation to persuasive strength in political decision making

microeconomic degrowth the case of community supported agriculture in this paper we attempt to build a new microeconomic approach that could be considered as a basis of the degrowth macroeconomic view as degrowth is a critique of the dominant macroeconomic model of the endless search for economic growth its microeconomic foundations can be built by searching a relevant grass root economic initiative to theorise our approach is based upon the case study research of a self harvesting community supported agriculture in belgium the mainstream microeconomic model is based on the well known homo economicus assumption of individual self interest and competitive behaviour by contrast our model is based on a holistic approach of producers and consumers based upon trust cooperation and ecologically responsible behaviours this contribution participates to the flourishing literature on degrowth in ecological economics we begin by reviewing the debate on degrowth and economic behaviour we discuss the case study and its accounting expression that departs from the capitalist profit seeking model we conclude by explaining the limits and challenges of our model that implements degrowth on a small scale and in a capitalist environment

georgescu roegen versus solow stiglitz daly is right to be concerned about our society s use of resources environmental degradation and the wasteful use of natural resources or any resources for that matter are of concern daly s tirade concerning our work seems motivated by two concerns a lack of consistency with basic laws of physics and the alleged implication that growth can continue unabated without eventually facing constraints imposed by the limited supply of natural resources part of the problem arises from a lack of understanding of the role of the kind of analytic models that we and others have formulated they are intended to help us answer questions like for the intermediate run for the next 50 60 years is it possible that growth can be sustained what does this possibility entail we write down models as if they extend out to infinity but no one takes these limits seriously for one thing an exponential increase in the population presents almost unimaginable problems of congestion on our limited planet in this intermediate run capital can substitute for natural resources and this is true even though capital itself uses resources more precise machines made out of resources that are relatively abundant can reduce wastage of resources that are relatively scarce technical change some of which is the result of investments in rd and increased efficiency in production may imply less wastage of bauxite and less coal or oil to produce the energy used to make a pound of aluminum or consider the resources that were required to run a regression only a half century ago pounds and pounds of heavy calculating machines replaced by mere ounces of a modern calculator changes in technology also allow us to recycle resources more efficiently so that the amount that is not recaptured for future production may be reduced perhaps the most important question is where does all of this lead us resources are scarce and markets when they function well reflect that scarcity economizing on the use of resources there are important instances especially where the environment and natural resources are concerned where markets do not work well there are for instance the classic problems posed by pollution externalities when markets do not

an equilibrium framework for the analysis of a degrowth society with asymmetric agents sharing and basic income abstract this paper presents a novel equilibrium framework allowing for asymmetries in the initial wealth allocations labour supplies as well as in the preferences of optimizing agents the framework is applied to study a degrowth society where a subset of agents voluntarily limit their material consumption thereby complying with voluntary simplicity vs at micro level the utility maximization problems of asymmetric agents are formulated and solved for optimal labour supplies new macro level equilibrium solutions accounting for wealth inequality are presented based on different labour supply models the equilibrium welfare is measured using a bernoully nash aggregate an increase in the share of the vs type agents implies a degrowth transition to a lower level of average consumption analysis of the equilibrium framework shows that degrowth whereby average market based consumption falls improves the equilibrium welfare assuming the vs type agents have sufficient resources enabling a reduction in labour supplies sharing collaborative consumption and basic income support welfare increasing degrowth any growing economy can eventually reach the size at which degrowth would improve the welfare simulations suggest that degrowth can also yield a pareto improvement in welfare

potentials for prosperity without growth ecological sustainability social inclusion and the quality of life in 38 countries recent contributions to ecological economics and related social sciences indicate that issues such as climate change resource depletion and environmental degradation cannot be effectively addressed under conditions of continued economic growth this paper aims at empirically identifying structural potentials and policy challenges for prosperity at scales where economic development remains within ecological carrying capacities building on the growing literature that interprets prosperity beyond economic growth the paper presents a three dimensional concept to operationalise prosperity in terms of ecological sustainability social inclusion and the quality of life these dimensions are measured using data from sources such as the world bank the global footprint network and the oecd the results of cluster and correspondence analyses indicate the existence of five prosperity regimes and demonstrate that all aspects of prosperity including unsatisfactory ecological performance are linked to economic development however our findings also indicate that in order to achieve a decent minimum of prosperity moderate levels of the material living standard are sufficient further increases in the material living standard do not lead to significant additional prosperity instead they cause greater environmental harms the paper concludes by highlighting potentials for prosperity for each of the prosperity regimes and corresponding policy challenges

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

linking daly s proposition to policymaking for sustainable development indicators and pathways abstract the statement that in the full world increasing the ultimate efficiency expressed as service throughput is the necessary condition for humanity to achieve high levels of well being within ecological limits is honoured as daly s proposition in this paper the purpose of this paper is to make daly s proposition effective guidance for policymaking related to sustainable development for this aim this paper puts forward the indicator ecological well being performance which is composed of the human development index and the ecological footprint to measure the ultimate efficiency furthermore by means of matrix analysis and factor decomposition analysis the respective pathways for countries at different stages of development to make the sustainable development transition were discussed the g20 countries were taken as the cases to conduct the research the empirical results show that improvements in well being and increases in throughput level are not necessarily positively related the relationship between the two depends on how countries control throughput levels and improve the ecological well being performance which also explains different performances on the sustainable development transition in a simple way this contribution provides new methods and criteria to track and evaluate national performance on sustainable development by referring to daly s original theories

the second law the fourth law recycling and limits to growth abstract despite counter examples in nature it has been argued that total recycling is impossible for an industrial society as a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics in this paper it is shown that there is no such limitation however it is also shown that there must be a large stockpile of inactive materials as well as an exogenous source of exergy e g from the sun for a stable steady state recycling system to function the paper also discusses briefly some of the implications for economic growth

economic de growth vs steady state economy in recent years the concept of economic de growth decroissance based on the literature of nicolas georgescu roegen e g 1 3 has found a revival in france italy spain and other countries in the popular as well as in the academic literature therein authors took on board georgescu roegens categorical rejection of a steady state economy sse as proposed by herman daly 4 they argue that economic degrowth is the only viable alternative goal to the growing economy this position is challenged in this article and it is concluded that the two concepts are in fact complements economic de growth is not a goal in itself but the rich north s path towards a globally equitable sse moreover the de growth literature can benefit from the strong economic historic roots of the sse and from daly s macroeconomic concepts while in return being able to give lessons about bottom up approaches this would be particularly important for the population issue where daly proposes limited birth licences unfortunately statements on demography are inconsistent and underdeveloped in the de growth literature further it is concluded that most criticisms of the sse are due to a too narrow and technocratic interpretation of the concept instead the sse should be defined as a quasi steady state resting in a dynamic equilibrium and as an unattainable goal which can and probably should be approximated