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Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity: Economic and Global Policy Issues Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity: Economic and Global Policy Issues
Format
cloth
Pages
vi, 360
ISBN
9781906093280

Written by international experts in their respective fields Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity provides a comprehensive overview of global issues of raw materials supply and resource use. It also introduces new views and perspectives on the sustainable growth of emerging economies and develops a rationale for a new resource economics.

This book emphasises why resources are back on the agenda: firstly, because of their fundamental economic role in technological progress and long-term prosperity; secondly, because deficits in raw material markets are now intertwined with deficits in the financial markets; and, thirdly, because the sustainable management natural resources is a crucial element in responses to new global challenges such as climate change.

Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity analyses raw materials supply and resource use in a global context. The contributions present state-of-the-art results and perspectives on the availability of resources and discuss factors such as limited supply, demand from emerging and other economies and the critical shortage of some materials--particularly some metals--that are essential inputs in many high-tech processes and may put certain industries at risk.

The book examines the overall empirical trend towards decoupling resource use from economic growth. It undertakes a rigorous cross-country comparison and looks in more detail at the cases of Finland and Greece, as well as at emerging economies and their role in the global governance of natural resources. A key focus is placed on China, with discussion of recent findings regarding Chinese domestic policy on energy, climate and resources as well as on developing Chinese foreign policy in Africa.

The book concludes with the positing of a new theory of resource economics: an emerging sub-discipline that puts resources at its heart but clearly aligns with other fields of economics, and transcends the borderlines of geology, geography, material science, recycling and waste, as well as elements of other social sciences.

This important new book will be essential reading for economic researchers, governmental officials, businesses and NGOs with an interest in understanding the policy links to sustainable growth and in learning more about the emerging field of resource productivity.

© Greenleaf Publishing Limited

 

CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I: Raw materials supply and resource use from a global perspective
1 Will the mining industry meet the global need for metals?
2 Global resource use in a business-as-usual world up to 2030: updated results from the GINFORS model
3 Development and growth in mineral-rich countries
4 The physical dimension of international trade, 1962-2005: empirical findings and tentative conclusions
5 Defining critical materials
Part II: The economics of resources and sustainable growth
6 Explaining oil price dynamics
7 Technological catch-up or resource rents? A production frontier approach to growth accounting
8 Socio-ecological market economy in Europe: Interrelations between resource, labour and capital productivity
9 Why do companies ignore economic efficiency potentials? The need for public efficiency awareness
Part III: Empirical analysis of resource productivity: trends and drivers
10 Decoupling GDP from resource use, resource productivity and competitiveness: a cross-country comparison
11 Anxiety and technological change: explaining the decline of sulphur dioxide emissions in Finland since 1950
12 Greece's fossil fuel use in 2006: a production, consumption and supply-chain analysis
Part IV: Global policy issues
13 China and India's global demand for resources: key inferences on international energy security and Africa's development
14 Asian energy and environmental policy: promoting growth while preserving the environment
15 The rationale for and economic implications of dematerialisation
Conclusions: towards a new resource economics
About the contributors
Index

Written by international experts in their respective fields Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity provides a comprehensive overview of global issues of raw materials supply and resource use. It also introduces new views and perspectives on the sustainable growth of emerging economies and develops a rationale for a new resource economics.

This book emphasises why resources are back on the agenda: firstly, because of their fundamental economic role in technological progress and long-term prosperity; secondly, because deficits in raw material markets are now intertwined with deficits in the financial markets; and, thirdly, because the sustainable management natural resources is a crucial element in responses to new global challenges such as climate change.

Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity analyses raw materials supply and resource use in a global context. The contributions present state-of-the-art results and perspectives on the availability of resources and discuss factors such as limited supply, demand from emerging and other economies and the critical shortage of some materials--particularly some metals--that are essential inputs in many high-tech processes and may put certain industries at risk.

The book examines the overall empirical trend towards decoupling resource use from economic growth. It undertakes a rigorous cross-country comparison and looks in more detail at the cases of Finland and Greece, as well as at emerging economies and their role in the global governance of natural resources. A key focus is placed on China, with discussion of recent findings regarding Chinese domestic policy on energy, climate and resources as well as on developing Chinese foreign policy in Africa.

The book concludes with the positing of a new theory of resource economics: an emerging sub-discipline that puts resources at its heart but clearly aligns with other fields of economics, and transcends the borderlines of geology, geography, material science, recycling and waste, as well as elements of other social sciences.

This important new book will be essential reading for economic researchers, governmental officials, businesses and NGOs with an interest in understanding the policy links to sustainable growth and in learning more about the emerging field of resource productivity.

© Greenleaf Publishing Limited

 

CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I: Raw materials supply and resource use from a global perspective
1 Will the mining industry meet the global need for metals?
2 Global resource use in a business-as-usual world up to 2030: updated results from the GINFORS model
3 Development and growth in mineral-rich countries
4 The physical dimension of international trade, 1962-2005: empirical findings and tentative conclusions
5 Defining critical materials
Part II: The economics of resources and sustainable growth
6 Explaining oil price dynamics
7 Technological catch-up or resource rents? A production frontier approach to growth accounting
8 Socio-ecological market economy in Europe: Interrelations between resource, labour and capital productivity
9 Why do companies ignore economic efficiency potentials? The need for public efficiency awareness
Part III: Empirical analysis of resource productivity: trends and drivers
10 Decoupling GDP from resource use, resource productivity and competitiveness: a cross-country comparison
11 Anxiety and technological change: explaining the decline of sulphur dioxide emissions in Finland since 1950
12 Greece's fossil fuel use in 2006: a production, consumption and supply-chain analysis
Part IV: Global policy issues
13 China and India's global demand for resources: key inferences on international energy security and Africa's development
14 Asian energy and environmental policy: promoting growth while preserving the environment
15 The rationale for and economic implications of dematerialisation
Conclusions: towards a new resource economics
About the contributors
Index