A survey of economic modelling of sustainable development

Abstract

An overview is offered of different approaches to economic modelling of sustainable development. First, conceptual-theoretical perspectives on sustainable development are shortly reviewed from the angle of model implications. Next, different model types are discussed. These include neoclassical growth models, sectorally disaggregated models, and integrated and co-evolutionary models. Special attention is also devoted to discounting in the context of concern for future generations, and to empirical issues involved in modelling for sustainable development.These rather extreme positions can be related to ethical positions such as expressed by Rawls' theory of justice (Rawls, 1972) and the 2

Non-renewable Resources and the Intergenerational Equity Problem in Saudi Arabia

“…Van den Bergh (1997) says a survey of state of ecological modernization, globally as well as in Australia, indicates that Insufficient Progress towards sustainable development has been made. After an analysis of the main factors constraining dematerialization of economic processes, we examine a stylized framework by an analytical device for Identifying and better articulating the differences between five disparate perspectives, (the Immaterialist, pessimist, democrat, carp diem are optimist) in the often-heated growth over heated growth versus environmental debate.…”

Endogenous technology and environmental quality in economic models

“…Daly, 1990, Pearce, Atkinson andHamilton, l998 andHofkes, 1998) teaches us that at second thought a proper definition of sustainability may prove more complicated than suggested above. It is symptomatic that the Dutch Central Plamring Bureau (1996), in a study on the relationship between the economy and the environment, has explicitly refrained from making the concept of sustainability operational in a model based analysis.…”

An Overview of Environmental and Resource Economics

“…Introductions to ecological economics are provided by Costanza et al (1 997a,b). Collections of articles from ecological economics conferences offer a good impression of the variety of views and approaches in this field: Costanza (1991), Costanza et al (1996), Jansson et al (1994), and van den Bergh andvan der Straaten (1994, 1997). Ecological economics critiques, based on considerations of an institutional, ecological or physical nature, have been largely neglected by mainstream environmental economists.…”