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

sustainable de growth mapping the context criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm article i nfo sustainable de growth is both a concept and a social grassroots northern movement with its origins in the fieldsofecologicaleconomics socialecology economicanthropologyand environmentalandsocialactivistgroups this paper introduces the concept of sustainable de growth by mapping some of the main intellectual influences fromthese fields with special focus on the francophone and anglophone thinking about this emergent notion we propose hypotheses pertaining to the appeal of sustainable de growth and compare it to the messages enclosed within the dominant sustainable development idea we scrutinize the theses contradictions and consequences of sustainable de growth thinking as it is currently being shaped by a heterogeneous body of literature and as it interacts with an ample and growing corpus of social movements we also discuss possible future paths for the de growth movement compared to the apparent weakening of the sustainable development paradigm

three persistent myths in the environmental debate abstract throughout the last three decades of working on environmental and resource problems i have encountered three persistent myths 1 environment conflicts with employment 2 production must grow to create scope for financing environmental conservation and 3 although society would like to save the environment it is too expensive testing these three propositions individually and mutually leads to the conclusion that as long as they dominate the environmental debate the world will drift ever further away from environmental sustainability

sustainable consumption within a sustainable economy beyond green growth and green economies abstract in 1992 one unambiguous result of the unced conference was the need for changing consumption and production patterns with affluent countries taking the lead 20 years later at the 2012 uncsd little is left over and instead the green economy has been the theme pursued by the oecd the eu and other countries so the question needs to be answered if this is finally an attempt to put into practice what was promised 20 years ago or another diversion from what needs to be accomplished sustainable development is still a convincing concept if the original definition is taken avoiding the confusion caused by partisan interests reinterpreting the concept focussing on human needs fulfilment and respecting environmental limits it can still guide strong sustainable consumption green economy green growth on the other hand is a new terminology for what is known since 40 years as ecological modernisation it is indeed overdue but with its focus on efficiency and innovation it cannot guarantee to fulfil the brundtland sustainability criteria a factor analysis based on the i p a t formula demonstrates how optimistic the assumptions regarding future technologies must be to support the green growth concept consequently the authors pledge for a pragmatic risk avoiding approach by slimming the physical size of the economy this requires strong sustainable consumption including production as resource consumption which in turn requires a change of the societies institutional settings formal and informal mechanisms and orientations finally some elements of a strategy towards this end are pointed out with special emphasis on the role of non governmental organisations ngos through networking and advocacy they can both stimulate bottom up action and mobilise the pressure necessary for the institutional changes which are needed to mainstream strong sustainable consumption

two interval inventory allocation policies in a one warehouse n identical retailer distribution system for a system of n identical retailers we construct a model for determining warehouse inventory allocation policies which minimize system lost sales per retailer between system replenishments an allocation policy is specified by a the number of withdrawals from warehouse stock b the intervals between successive withdrawals c the quantity of stock to be withdrawn from the warehouse in each interval and d the division of withdrawn stock among the retailers we show that in the case of two withdrawals available stock in each interval should be divided to balance retailer inventories we also develop an infinite retailer model and use it to determine two interval allocation heuristics for n retailer systems simulation tests suggest that the infinite retailer heuristic policies are near optimal for as few as two retailers simulation tests indicate that the risk pooling benefits of allocation policies with two well chosen intervals are comparable to those of base stock policies with four equal intervals

why haven t global markets reduced inequality in emerging economies the theory of comparative advantage predicts that globalization should cause inequality in emerging economies to fall however this has not been true of the current globalization even though the prediction held up well for previous such episodes in this paper i sketch an alternative theory developed in collaboration with michael kremer that seems to fit recent history well

dynamic sustainability assessment the case of russia in the period of transition 1985 2008 abstract russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change which had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy infrastructure the quality of the environment and the well being of its people the current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of russia the paper employs the un sustainable development framework of indicators and assesses sustainability of russia using multi criteria evaluation methods namely the uncertainty randomization multi criteria evaluation method analysis and synthesis of parameters under information deficiency aspid the analysis covers economic environmental and social trends in russia s development in 1985 2008 and assesses sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria the results show the potential of employment of multi criteria methods for the sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process such an analysis reveals the degree of harmoniousness of sustainable development policy it shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments this paper is one of the first to apply multi criteria methods to the macro sustainability analysis in the dynamic setting

serial supply chains with economies of scale bounds and approximations we consider two models of stochastic serial inventory systems with economies of scale for which the forms of optimal policies are known in the first model each stage has a fixed order quantity while in the second model there is a fixed order cost for external supplies for each model we show that the optimal policy parameters can be bounded and approximated by a series of independent single stage optimal policy parameters we further construct closed form bounds and approximations for the single stage solutions and apply them to the serial systems these results provide simple and effective solutions that will help to facilitate implementations in practice they also allow us to see the connections between the serial and single stage systems and sharpen our intuition on optimal policy parameters and system behavior

evaluation of stock allocation policies in a divergent inventory system with shipment consolidation in this paper we consider a one warehouse n retailer inventory system characterized by access to real time point of sale data and a time based dispatching and shipment consolidation policy at the warehouse more precisely inventory is reviewed continuously while a consolidated shipment for example a truck to all retailers is dispatched from the warehouse at regular time intervals the focus is on investigating the cost benefits of using state dependent myopic allocation policies instead of a simple fcfs first come first serve rule to allocate shipped goods to the retailers the analysis aims to shed some light on when if ever fcfs is a reasonable policy to use in this type of system the fcfs allocations of items to retailers are determined by the sequence in which retailer orders or equivalently customer demands arrive to the warehouse applying the myopic policy enables the warehouse to postpone the allocation decision to the moment of shipment from the warehouse or the moments of delivery to the different retailers and to base it on the inventory information available at those times the myopic allocation method we study is often used in the literature on periodic review systems

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

measuring sustainable welfare a new approach to the isew abstract sustainability and welfare assessment is a contemporary theme of major scientific and policy relevance requiring the consideration of multiple dimensions and diverse perspectives the economic approach to sustainability and welfare assessment has frequently relied on alternatives or adjustments to gdp widely used as an indicator of macroeconomic performance several authors have proposed alternative indicators such as the isew which intend to measure sustainability and economic welfare in a way that avoids the limitations of gdp namely accounting for the value of externalities the distribution of income and natural resources depletion since daly and cobb 1989 there have been proposed improvements to the isew however its aptitude to represent a sound alternative to gdp is still the subject of scientific debate this paper presents a new approach to the isew named modified isew including new components and methodological changes for the estimation of the index these have the purpose of avoiding some of the index shortcomings and allow for a direct comparison with the gdp which are advantages over previous studies an application is developed for the us case taking advantage of wide data availability and the possibility of comparing the results with previous works the results obtained provide a clearer picture of the success or failure of environmental and social policies namely by avoiding the tampering effect resulting from the cumulative accounting of environmental externalities this work also emphasizes the inadequacy of gdp as a welfare indicator as well as the need to develop and adopt alternative indicators

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

barriers and opportunities for alternative measures of economic welfare this paper explores a number of barriers and opportunities facing alternative measures of economic welfare by conducting semi structured in depth interviews with potential users in both belgium and germany the barriers that they identified are grouped into three categories context factors are embedded in the policy context and agendas that shape the environment in which an indicator percolates indicator factors depend on specific characteristics of the indicators while user factors relate to the level of experience and expertise of the users of indicators and the institutional culture in which they operate drawing on the different barriers that are reported we identify four opportunities to increase the policy value of alternative measures of economic welfare harmonizing and updating the methodological framework extending macroeconomic models to include a wider range of welfare related items improving the communication around these indicators and promoting indicator and researcher entrepreneurship these opportunities should be regarded as recommendations to the scientific community that works on these alternative measures the process of overcoming the different barriers listed in this paper should not be insurmountable as there is clear international public support for using health social and environmental statistics as well as economic statistics to measure societal progress and human well being

exact evaluation of batch ordering inventory policies in two echelon supply chains with periodic review this paper studies a two echelon supply chain with stochastic and discrete consumer demand batch order quantities periodic inventory review and deterministic transportation times reorder point policies manage inventories at every location average inventory backorders and fill rates are evaluated exactly for each location safety stock is evaluated exactly at the lower echelon and a good approximation is detailed for the upper echelon numerical data are presented to demonstrate the model s utility it is found that system costs generally increase substantially if the upper echelon is restricted to carry no inventory of if the upper echelon is required to provide a high fill rate in many cases it is optimal to set the upper echelon s reorder point to yield near zero safety stock yet in some cases this simple heuristic can significantly increase supply chain operating costs finally policies selected under the assumption of continuous inventory review can perform poorly if implemented in an environment with periodic review

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

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

economic openness and green gdp since the early 1990s there have been several attempts to develop national income accounting systems which recognize the negative impacts of environmental degradation and income inequalities on economic welfare collectively these bgreenq gross domestic product gdp studies have generated a wealth of new time series data sets which can be used to reexamine the links between gdp and a host of factors commonly included in traditional economic growth models in this paper we develop models of green gdp growth and the gap between traditional and green gdp by using a panel data set from eight countries spanning 30 50 years in both the growth and gap models the effects of economic openness are tested we find strong and robust results suggesting a negative nonlinear correlation between openness and green gdp growth and a positive nonlinear correlation between openness and growth of the gap between traditional and green gdp while green gdp accounting systems are still in their infancy our paper nonetheless implies that once these more comprehensive measures are fully developed empirical models which explore factors contributing to the growth of economic welfare over time should be reexamined d 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

eco efficiency guiding micro level actions towards sustainability ten basic steps for analysis abstract this paper looks at the compatibility between technological improvements at the micro level and sustainability at the macro level the two main approaches to prevent environmental degradation are technological improvement and economic degrowth how do we establish the sustainability of technological options lca type analysis of the technology system combined with economic cost analysis offers a first integrated eco efficiency score however such a technology analysis focuses on micro level technology relations only is usually too optimistic and ignores other constraints implied in a choice fitting more comprehensive knowledge into the sustainability evaluation of options requires a unifying systematic framework which is worked out in the present paper as a ten step procedure the integrative framework for empirical analysis is ultimately a comparative static systems analysis at macro level not in a deterministic dynamic mode which is impossible but as a knowledge fed scenario analysis the analysis shows the change in society s overall eco efficiency combining total value creation with total environmental impacts possible domains of application include not only technology choices like those in eco innovation including changed consumption styles and volumes but also changes in policies regarding technologies and markets whether direct policy shifts or indirect changes through institutional adaptations ultimately such a framework also allows culturally framed questions about the type of society we would like to live in to be analysed in terms of their economic and environmental consequences

should degrowth embrace the job guarantee degrowth should consider the right to work a job guarantee jg as a way of making a smaller economy more just and socially sustainable economic shrinkage in richer countries is accompanied by increased unemployment a bad enough problem in itself but also a barrier to voters acceptance of the degrowth path since being out of work is distinct from being poor anti poverty income policies should be approached separately the jg is one of several paths to full employment including reduced working time this essay only briefly mentions some real world jg programs and some technical objections the main suggestion is to move employment from being a matter of economics particularly economic growth to being a political right a right to work is necessarily effective and would avoid sacrificing the ecological and social goals of degrowth on the altar of full employment

estimating the genuine progress indicator gpi for brazil from 1970 to 2010 this paper estimates the genuine progress indicator gpi for brazil from 1970 to 2010 as an alternative indicator to the gross domestic product gdp after a growing disparity between these two indicators in the 1980s when brazil s per capita gpi featured a 35 decline there was a relative catch up in per capita gpi but not one sufficiently strong enough to reduce the historical gpi gdp gap the recent trend of rapidly increasing environmental and social costs along with the decline in unpaid labour and infrastructure services poses concerns about the sustainability of an increasing gpi for brazil into the future policies aimed at reducing environmental costs are necessary if brazil is to enjoy a sustainable pattern of non declining economic welfare brazil must pursue a higher rate of productivity in material and energy consumption in order to keep environmental pressures to a minimum level

governing transitions cases and insights from two periods in the history of the uk gas industry the paper aims to inform historically the analyses of future sociotechnical transition pathways in the electricity sector particularly those developed by the transition pathways to a low carbon economy project it also aims to inform the theoretical approach to transitions by focusing on key decisions at branching points that led to transitions in the uk gas energy services regime which occurred under different governance patterns the first historical case study covers the market led transformation of the manufactured gas regime from 1877 to 1914 which developed the end uses of gas beyond lighting to include cooking and extended access to working class consumers the second case study covers the period from 1948 to 1977 historically reconstructing the transition from town gas to natural gas this state led and coordinated conversion to natural gas was preceded by a period of destabilisation of the manufactured gas regime the co existence of several niche technologies and the hybridisation of the key actors and technological infrastructures of the incumbent regime comparing the cases provides insights for future energy service transitions by addressing the significance of power trust and networking in the decision making processes involved in the governance of energy transitions

what is ecological economics ecological economics addresses the relationships between ecosystems and economic systems in the broadest sense these relationships are the locus of many of our most pressing current problems i e sustainability acid rain global warming species extinction wealth distribution but they are not well covered by any existing discipline environmental and resource economics as it is currently practiced covers only the application of neoclassical economics to environmental and resource problems ecology as it is cur rently practiced sometimes deals with human impacts on ecosystems but the more common tendency is to stick to natural systems ecological economics aims to extend these modest areas of overlap it will include neoclassical environmental economics and ecological impact studies as sub sets but will also encourage new ways of thinking about the linkages between ecological and economic systems we have chosen the name ecological economics for this area of study because it implies a broad ecological interdisciplinary and holistic view of the problem of studying and managing our world the earth from space cover of the journal reflects this global holistic perspective we did not intend to imply with the ordering of the two words in the title that the journal is mainly an economics journal it is intended to be a new approach to both ecology and economics that recognizes the need to make economics more cognizant of ecological impacts and dependencies the need to make ecology more sensitive to economic forces incentives and constraints and the need to treat integrated economic ecologic systems with a common but diverse set of conceptual and analytical tools there was much discussion of other possible names such as economic ecology or ecology and economics or some conjoining of the two words that to me end up being confusing tongue twisters like ecolnomics or econology but ecological economics seemed to get closest to the mean ing we desired while still being evocative to the uninitiated

degrowth and the supply of money in an energy scarce world abstract degrowth is going to happen whether governments want it or not because as fossil fuels run out incomes will shrink along with the energy supply this degrowth can either be unplanned and catastrophic or managed and relatively benign this paper argues that three tools are essential to avoid degrowth becoming a catastrophic collapse these are i a system to share the benefits from using increasingly scarce fossil fuels ii new ways of financing businesses and iii the introduction of debt free regional and local currencies

the world bank and the street how do doing business reforms affect tanzania s micro traders the well documented weaknesses of structural adjustment policies have led to a reconceptualisation of the world bank s approach to neo liberal reforms the doing business reforms aim to foster a better climate for business in a number of ways the main policy documents reject interventions targeted at specific groups but although they identify informal small and medium enterprises smes as likely to benefit disproportionately they specifically exclude micro enterprises as a target group the general argument of this paper is that reforms may well impact non target groups through interactions with several areas of policy and law with public attitudes and with multiple economic sectors in particular it is argued that the exclusion of micro traders from the reforms contributes to their marginalisation in political and policy arenas increasing their vulnerability to state intervention the paper draws on a four month study conducted by the authors in tanzania in 2007

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

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

is microcredit a blessing for the poor a meta analysis examining development outcomes and contextual considerations abstract increasing efforts aim at economic development and the reduction of poverty in developing countries through microcredit enabled entrepreneurship following the award of the nobel peace prize to prof yunus microcredit lending has risen to prominence and the volume of microcredit loans has increased substantially however theory on the outcomes of this financing form is controversial furthermore the academic community lacks conclusive empirical evidence about the impact of such programs primary empirical studies report fragmented and to a large extent contradictory results in this meta analysis we empirically synthesize a total of 545 quantitative empirical findings from 90 studies conducted to date our findings reveal a positive impact of microcredit on key development outcomes at the level of the client entrepreneurs additionally we scrutinize how the development context influences the effectiveness of microcredit and find that microcredit generally has a greater impact in more challenging contexts with our findings we contribute to research on the nexus of entrepreneurship and economic development and offer recommendations for practitioners and academics working on this promising frontier

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

why are we growth addicted the hard way towards degrowth in the involutionary western development path abstract by questioning the origins of the inertia facing the degrowth movement this contribution identifies property as the constitutive institution of capitalism and property expansion as the dominant socioeconomic process leading world societies to economic path dependence techno institutional lock in and eco social impasse demonstrating why and how property based economic rationality subordinates ecological and social considerations to capitalist requirements this paper stresses both the need for an inversion in the hierarchy of social norms and the systemic opposition to such an inversion which emanates from the capitalist industrial expansion the text also brings to light some disregarded processes underlying the current economic crisis by pointing out the institutional and technological locked in situation into which the western development path has led our societies

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

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

full world versus empty world paradigm at the time of globalisation abstract the mediterranean region is characterised by a high diversity mainly due to the integration between natural land heterogeneity and human stewardship processes cultural landscapes are the results of such coevolutive processes a better understanding of the mechanisms that have assured along the millennia the maintenance of biological as well as ecological processes seems of extreme importance for our future survival in north america a frontier mentality persists in the cultural mindset and rich biodiversity is associated only with remote areas reflecting a model of an empty world in which human development is completely isolated from the natural wild processes this vision is in contrast with the full world vision of the mediterranean dwellings plasticity adaptation to disturbance and the persisting of biological refugia can be considered the most relevant factors responsible for the mediterranean dynamics these factors are rare or impossible to find in the north america context from which the dominance of the economic capital over the natural and cultural ones is a very popular model exported worldwide in this commentary the full world paradigm is presented as an extension of the concept of resilience and ascendancy to propose a new grammar that incorporates self organisation of natural and human dominated systems into a process of diffuse globalisation of economics and human behaviour

batch size and stocking levels in multi echelon repairable systems in multi echelon repairable inventory systems with high set up cost for order and or high demand rates the use of batch ordering may be more cost effective than the common s 1 s ordering policy this paper addresses the issue of determining the optimal order batch size and stocking levels at the stocking locations in such a system a power approximation is used to estimate the total system stock and backorder levels from which the optimal batch size can be readily determined a search routine involving one pass searches are then followed to obtain the stocking levels at the depot and the local sites of the system this procedure has been evaluated using 900 test cases and has been found to be very effective the power approximation approach also results in a simple analytical relationship to test whether or not s 1 s is an optimal ordering policy for repairable items in a multi echelon environment

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

measuring sustainable development some empirical evidence for france from eight alternative indicators abstract this paper presents results from a time series analysis of eight measures of development and or sustainability for france the measures chosen are green national net product genuine savings ecological footprint indicator of sustainable economic welfare genuine progress indicator pollution sensitive human development indicator sustainable human development indicator and french dashboard on sustainable development a theoretical description of each index highlights their advantages and drawbacks underlining the fact that no indicator is perfect and no one can give an exhaustive view of sustainable development therefore the analysis of various indicators is necessary to evaluate sustainable development with accuracy empirical results of measures of well being show that french development was improving between 1990 and 2000 concerning sustainability indicators support different conclusions it seems that french development was weakly sustainable but unsustainable in the strong sense over the period examined

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

looking through the dataquadrate characterizing the human environment relationship through economic hedonic ecological and demographic measures abstract this paper introduces the concept of plotting four dimensional data in two dimensions without loss of information namely the dataquadrate concept here objects are represented as quadrates instead of points in a practical 4 axis cartesian coordinate system this procedure helps us imagine and analyze complex relations where four different non negative variables influence processes this tool is of high utility for analyzing specific human environment issues here we analyze a monetary measure gross domestic product gdp a hedonic measure subjective wellbeing a limiting measure ecological footprint and a demographic measure human population our system adds new insights to the de growth debate discussed in a journal of cleaner production special issue vol 18 2010 and systematically illuminates lots of confusing paradoxes such as the downward sloping part of the environmental kuznets curve the jevons paradox and the easterlin paradox in this paper all these phenomena are analyzed for the usa and for china in 1990 and in 2007 by utilizing such methodology when mitigating environmental problems we are not limited to negative restrictive messages but are enabled to create new strategic ways of problem solving about how to optimize the human celestial footprint the ratio of human wellbeing to human environmental load

the end of economic growth a contracting threshold hypothesis this paper argues that gdp growth in both developed and developing countries has associated costs that can outweigh the benefits and thus reduce sustainable well being this conclusion is based upon the findings of empirical applications of the genuine progress indicator gpi to a range of countries in the asia pacific region the studies conducted on seven asia pacific countries indicate that in the case of five of the seven nations more recent gdp growth has reduced the sustainable well being experienced by the average citizen residing within them moreover the threshold point at which the costs of gdp growth outweigh the benefits appears to be contracting i e occurring at a much lower per capita level of gdp this paper therefore introduces a new contracting threshold hypothesis as the economies of the asia pacific region and the world collectively expand in a globalised economic environment there is a contraction over time in the threshold level of per capita gdp as a consequence the threshold point confronting growth late comers i e developing countries occurs at a much lower level of sustainable welfare than what wealthy nations currently enjoy the consequences of this for developing countries are clearly significant and require a new approach to economic development

should access to credit be a right discussion on financial ethics increasingly includes the problem of exclusion of the poorer segments of society from the financial system and access to credit this paper explores the ethical dimensions surrounding the concept of a human right to credit if access to credit is directly instrumental to economic development poverty reduction and the improved welfare of all citizens then one can proclaim as nobel prize laureate m yunus has done that it is a moral necessity to establish credit as a right arguments both supporting and opposing the concept of a right to credit are presented while there may be general agreement that access to financial services may provide a pathway out of poverty granting a universal right could induce perverse effects such as overindebtedness bearing in mind the ultimate goal of proponents of this right as well as the potential harmful consequences this paper offers a new perspective on the question of access to credit based on a goal right system

optimal policies for multi echelon inventory problems with batch ordering in many production distribution systems materials flow from one stage to another in fixed lot sizes for example a retailer orders a full truckload from a manufacturer to qualify for a quantity discount a factory has a material handling system that moves full containers of parts from one production stage to the next in this paper we derive optimal policies for multi stage serial and assembly systems where materials flow in fixed batches the optimal policies have a simple structure and their parameters can be easily determined this research extends the multi echelon inventory theory in several ways it generalizes the clark scarf model by allowing batch transfers of inventories rosling 1989 shows that assembly systems can be interpreted as serial systems under the assumption that there are no setup costs we show that the series interpretation still holds when materials flow in fixed batches which satisfy a certain regularity condition finally veinott 1965 identifies an optimal policy for a single location inventory system with batch ordering this paper generalizes his result to multi echelon settings

microequity and microfinance abstract this paper examines the work of the village enterprise fund an us nongovernmental organization in east africa as a case study in equity based microfinance in low income countries many small businesses established in high income countries rely on some form of equity capital to fund the startup phase and much of the growth of the business the success of startup grants and equity financing in high income countries suggests that this method might also be applicable in low income countries using the work of the village enterprise fund as an example the paper argues that startup grants and equity finance are useful and appropriate in addition to the more common loan based approaches

digitalization and energy consumption does ict reduce energy demand abstract this article investigates the effect of digitalization on energy consumption using an analytical model we investigate four effects 1 direct effects from the production usage and disposal of information and communication technologies ict 2 energy efficiency increases from digitalization 3 economic growth from increases in labor and energy productivities and 4 sectoral change tertiarization from the rise of ict services the analysis combines empirical and theoretical findings from debates on decoupling energy consumption from economic growth and from debates on green it and ict for sustainability our main results effects 1 and 3 tend to increase energy consumption effects 2 and 4 tend to decrease it furthermore our analysis suggests that the two increasing effects prevail so that overall digitalization increases energy consumption these results can be explained by four insights from ecological economics a physical capital and energy are complements in the ict sector b increases in energy efficiency lead to rebound effects c ict cannot solve the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from exergy d ict services are relatively energy intensive and come on top of former production in future digitalization can only boost sustainability when it fosters effects 2 and 4 without promoting effects 1 and 3

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

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

micro credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development who pays abstract there is a growing acknowledgement that micro credit programs have potential for equitable and sustainable development however my anthropological research on the micro credit program of the grameen bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution to ensure timely repayment in the loan centers bank workers and borrowing peers inflict an intense pressure on women clients in the study community many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules through a process of loan recycling that considerably increases the debt liability on the individual households increases tension and frustration among household members produces new forms of dominance over women and increases violence in society

one warehouse multiretailer systems with centralized stock information we consider a distribution system with a central warehouse and multiple retailers the warehouse orders from an outside supplier and replenishes the retailers which in turn satisfy customer demand the retailers are nonidentical and their demand processes are independent compound poisson there are economies of scale in inventory replenishment which is controlled by an echelon stock batch transfer policy for the special case with simple poisson demand we develop an exact method for computing the long run average holding and backorder costs of the system based on this exact method we provide approximations for compound poisson demand numerical examples are used to illustrate the accuracy of the approximations we also present a numerical comparison between the average costs of a heuristic echelon stock policy and an existing lower bound on the average costs of all feasible policies

a multiechelon inventory model with fixed replenishment intervals this paper develops a new model for studying multiechelon inventory systems with stochastic demand for the model we assume that each site in the system orders at preset times according to an order up to policy that delivery times are deterministic and that the demand processes are stochastic with independent increments we introduce a new scheme for allocating stock in short supply which we call virtual allocation and which permits significant tractability we exercise the model on a set of test problems for two echelon systems to get insight into the structure of good policies the primary findings are that both the central warehouse upper echelon and the retail sites lower echelon should hold safety stock but that most of the safety stock should be at the retail sites consequently the central warehouse will stock out with high probability furthermore we show that the virtual allocation rule is near optimal for the set of test problems

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

a summary of isew and gpi studies at multiple scales and new estimates for baltimore city baltimore county and the state of maryland this paper 1 summarizes a number of previous index of sustainable economic welfare isew and genuine progress indicator gpi studies at various scales 2 estimates the gpi for baltimore baltimore county and the state of maryland and 3 compares these results with previous and parallel studies gpi incorporates environmental social and economic information into a single metric to represent economic well being at all three scales gpi was found to grow at a slower rate than the conventional economic measure of gross domestic product gdp while at the us national scale gpi has been relatively flat since 1975 state level results match an independently calculated maryland gpi confirming that gpi methods are robust and reproducible in addition the state of maryland has recently made gpi one of their official state statistics reported annually state level gpi results were also compared with studies for the states of ohio and vermont to explore regional differences we recommend that the gpi research community develop consensus on a standardized measurement approach and seek common ground for advancing the use of improved indicators and accounting systems in official policy settings

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

knowledge collaboration and learning by aligning global sustainability programs reflections in the context of rio 20 abstract there is widespread concern that the economy is crashing against the earth already causing problems in terms of climate change water depletion and loss of biodiversity yet the global economy still will have to grow two to four fold to provide all future global inhabitants with the average yearly income of 10 000 that is needed to have a reasonable life expectancy and human development index rio 20 was intended to reconcile the need for poverty eradication with a green economy but had limited perceived success this paper analyses how some of the major international sustainability programs that contributed to rio 20 could have supported a more far reaching outcome two problems are identified the programs showed significant overlap and the programs themselves were often incremental in nature seeking compromises and avoiding more radical approaches such as the degrowth agenda to address the first problem we suggest how a natural process of mutual collaboration learning and strengthening could occur the un green economy initiative could focus on providing the socio economic rationale for sustainability bodies like the ipcc and the unep resources panel could focus on providing the environmental rationale and planetary limits related to sustainability programs in the field of sustainable consumption and production as well as resource efficient and cleaner production could focus on providing hands on support and proof of how to change direction there seems no clear cut answer for the second problem some authors suggest relying more on action outside formal policy systems that by nature seek compromises however they also see a required role for government action which is exactly what rio 20 and its supportive policy programs failed to achieve and negotiate

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

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

the growth discourse growth policy and sustainable development two thought experiments abstract this paper addresses three aspects of growth the discourse the policy and the impacts the growth discourse claims that the central factor for social economic political and environmental progress is economic growth it is assumed to create wealth and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes on the basis of the growth discourse different growth policies can be derived based on different economic and political ideologies in order to reveal the implications of de facto degrowth two thought experiments are conducted for physical and economic end to growth strategies the latter is capable of meeting environmental objectives but implies significant social tensions and hardships and calls for transition strategies consisting of carefully designed steps

the economic and financial dimensions of degrowth abstract we respond to the call for future research on degrowth and specifically analyze the implications of economic degrowth on the monetary and financial system we argue that any early indications of degrowth would cause the stock market to crash which would trigger further deleveraging contagion and a deflation as a result the economy would implode which would eventually allow for a new rapid growth cycle given the likely extraordinary fiscal and monetary policy response during the implosion thus in our view degrowth as an explicit strategy option is economically unsustainable and unfeasible as a limitation our analysis centers on the examples of unplanned crisis leading to an economic implosion which imperfectly represent the idea of planned voluntary degrowth

exact and approximate evaluation of batch ordering policies for two level inventory systems we consider a two level inventory system with one warehouse and n identical retailers lead times transportation times are constant and the retailers face independent poisson demand in a previous paper we derived a recursive procedure for determining the policy costs for an average item in case of one for one replenishment policies in this paper we show how these results can be used for the exact or approximate evaluation of more general policies where both the retailers and the warehouse order in batches we compare our methods to the method recently suggested by a svoronos and p zipkin

microfinance in africa is it either the problem or the solution abstract this article is based on research undertaken on microenterprises in the informal sector in kenya malawi and ghana it seeks to provoke critical reflection on the uncritical enthusiasm that lies behind much proselytizing of microfinance for informal sector microenterprise it questions whether the extensive donor interest in microenterprise finance really addresses the problems of microentrepreneurs or whether it offers the illusion of a quick fix it suggests that the real problems are more profound and cannot be tackled solely by capital injections but require fundamental structural changes of the socioeconomic conditions that define informal sector activity and a fuller understanding of the psyche of informal sector entrepreneurs

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

on the methodology of isew gpi and related measures some constructive suggestions and some doubt on the threshold hypothesis existing country studies of the index of sustainable economic welfare isew the genuine progress indicator gpi and related measures while sharing the same basic methodological approach differ with respect to the valuation of important items this paper provides a critical but constructive discussion of the various methods used for the valuation of non renewable resource depletion and long term environmental damage and for the weighting of consumption expenditures for income inequalities several recommendations are given on how to improve the methodology for future updates of existing studies or for the construction of new measures sensitivity analysis shows that if these recommendations are followed for the valuation of resource depletion and long term environmental damage then the so called threshold hypothesis which seems to have gained empirical support from all studies undertaken so far fails to materialise this suggests that as far as factors related to the environment are concerned the widening gap between isew and gpi on the one hand and gross national product gnp on the other might be an artefact of highly contestable methodological assumptions 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

many borrow more save and all insure implications for food and micro finance policy abstract among policy makers researchers and micro finance practitioners alike there is much discussion on the role of micro finance for alleviation of poverty this paper focuses on the linkages between access to credit savings and insurance services and household food security what is the role of micro finance in the overall mix of policy instruments what types of financial services are demanded by the poor and which are offered by micro finance institutions mfis hence which are the gaps in financial products we present a conceptual framework that addresses these questions and provide a synthesis of the empirical results of a multi country research program in ten african and asian countries we conclude that insurance can be considered as the missing third of micro finance during the 1990s and that the mfi s outreach to the poor can be improved by offering savings credit and insurance products that enhance the poor s ability to bear risks applied research on the poor s preferences as well as bold experimentation with new financial products appear to be particularly promising in making progress towards that goal since insurance services are difficult to be offered except for easily observable idiosyncratic risks precautionary savings services can be a valuable insurance substitute in particular for the poorest

determinants of credit rationing a study of informal lenders and formal credit groups in madagascar abstract previous research on the determinants of credit rationing focused exclusively on the behavior of formal lenders who contract directly with an individual borrower based on survey data from madagascar this paper presents an analysis of credit rationing by informal lenders and by members of community based groups that allocate formal group loans among themselves the results show that group members are able to obtain and to use locally available information about the applicant s creditworthiness in much the same way as informal lenders do both types of lenders use the applicant s debt servicing obligations and income as the main criteria for credit rationing this paper therefore empirically confirms theoretical arguments that community based groups have an information advantage over distant formal bank agents

proposed changes to the index of sustainable economic welfare an application to belgium abstract this paper presents the results of a belgian case study on the index of sustainable economic welfare isew the index is first compiled using the standard methodology applied in other international studies owing to the short period in which belgium s traditional isew has recently declined it is not possible to draw any solid conclusion regarding max neef s threshold hypothesis after a brief review of the criticism that the isew has attracted over the years the paper then explains and discusses the rationale for omitting the net capital growth and change in net international investment position items it is argued that these items do not comply with the theoretical foundation underpinning the isew the paper also puts forward new valuation methods for several items within the index the escalation factor in the valuation of natural capital depletion is dropped long term environmental damage is valued using a stock based approach and considerably more government expenditures are considered to be non defensive the results of the revised isew show significant improvements in sustainable economic welfare over the entire study period these findings are not in line with the threshold hypothesis finally the paper offers some guidelines for communicating about the isew namely that a all methodological assumptions should be made explicit and b all raw unadjusted data used should be included in any final isew report so as to enable the reader to make his or her own assessment about the assumptions the researcher has employed