Documents economics 325 results

"Economics is broken. It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.

Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man' and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature's resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.

Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation."

"The report surveys the state of our knowledge regarding the effects of trade on the environment. A central question is whether globalization helps or hurts in achieving the best tradeoff between environmental and economic goals. Do international trade and investment allow countries to achieve more economic growth for any given level of environmental quality? Or do they damage environmental quality for any given rate of economic growth? Globalization is a complex trend, encompassing many forces and many effects. It would be surprising if all of them were always unfavorable to the environment, or all of them favorable. The highest priority should be to determine ways in which globalization can be successfully harnessed to promote protection of the environment, along with other shared objectives, as opposed to degradation of the environment. The report considers whether globalization has damaged environmental goals. Trade has some of its effects through the channel of accelerating economic growth, because trade contributes to growth analogously to investment, technological progress, and so on. Other effects come even when taking the level of income as given. In the case of each of the two channels, effects can be either positive or negative. "

"Ces derniers mois, la moitié des gouvernements de la planète faisaient le choix de préférer la santé de leurs populations à la croissance de leurs économies faute d'avoir pris soin de la vitalité de leurs écosystèmes. La leçon est implacable : détruire la Nature est un suicide social et accessoirement une folie économique dont nous n'avons pas les moyens.

Ce livre soutient que l'espérance de vie et la pleine santé doivent désormais devenir nos boussoles communes dans ce nouveau siècle, à même de nous orienter les yeux grands ouverts dans un monde où bien-être humain et vitalité des écosystèmes sont irrémédiablement entrelacés et projetés ensemble à toute allure dans une spirale de plus en plus vicieuse qu'il nous faut à tout prix inverser. Être prospère aujourd'hui, c'est se donner les moyens de tenir parole sur la poursuite de l'aventure humaine dans vingt ou trente ans. Être prospère, c'est donc d'abord être en bonne santé.

Dans notre âge de l'incertitude et donc de l'inquiétude écologique, le soin apporté à notre santé nous est avant tout une protection. Plus nous apporterons de soin à notre santé, mieux nous saurons affronter les crises qui sont déjà là et devant nous. Et plus nous apporterons de soin aux écosystèmes qui sont la clé de notre santé, plus notre vie sera longue et plaisante.

En nous laissant guider par une pleine santé qui donne toute leur place aux écosystèmes qui nous font vivre, on peut trouver le moyen de réorienter nos systèmes économiques pour donner un sens partagé à la transition écologique : une transition aussi bien individuelle que collective, personnelle que relationnelle, biologique comme écologique. Une transition instinctive, sensuelle et viscérale. Dans ce sens retrouvé, aux antipodes d'indicateurs économiques qui ne disent plus rien à personne, la pleine santé a le pouvoir d'apaiser, de guérir, de réparer."

"Computer-based models are valuable tools for investigating scenarios for aligning near-term actions and policies with long-term goals. Nonexperts who contribute to climate mitigation decision-making need to be able to evaluate these models and recognize that there is no “best” model that answers all policy questions. This issue brief provides guidance to nonexperts on what to look for in reading and evaluating studies that model climate mitigation. It describes seven dimensions to consider when reading modeling studies—primary goals, the scope, the modeling framework, scenarios and data inputs, uncertainty, results, and process aspects—and determine if the studies are transparent about the assumptions and key inputs they use."

"This essential reference for students and scholars in the input-output research and applications community has been fully revised and updated to reflect important developments in the field. Expanded coverage includes construction and application of multiregional and interregional models, including international models and their application to global economic issues such as climate change and international trade; structural decomposition and path analysis; linkages and key sector identification and hypothetical extraction analysis; the connection of national income and product accounts to input-output accounts; supply and use tables for commodity-by-industry accounting and models; social accounting matrices; non-survey estimation techniques; and energy and environmental applications. Input-Output Analysis is an ideal introduction to the subject for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in many scholarly fields, including economics, regional science, regional economics, city, regional and urban planning, environmental planning, public policy analysis and public management."

"In this paper we critically assess common perceptions of work to inform current debates on work in ecological economics. Work is usually conceived as (1) a productive activity (2) that satisfies consumer demand, (3) is conducive to health and well-being, and (4) ensures social inclusion and personal development. Drawing on the burgeoning literature of postwork or critiques of work, we argue that work may rather be understood as a biophysically intense, consumption-causing, heteronomous institution with ambivalent health impacts that stabilises societies in environmentally and socially unsustainable ways. Therefore, work should be radically reduced and organised differently so that it is no longer the main mechanism for livelihood provisioning and social inclusion. Based on our fourfold critique of work developed in this paper, we sketch out a postwork research agenda for ecological economics."

"The European Parliament started monitoring future shocks during the coronavirus crisis, and has continued to do so during Russia's unprecedented war on Ukraine. The annual 'Future Shocks' series reviews global risks, with a focus on specific risks and the capabilities and resilience of the EU system in the face of multiple challenges. It seeks to provide up-to-date, objective and authoritative information on these risks, based on risk literature from a broad range of sources. 'Future Shocks' includes, but is not limited to, areas where the EU has primary competence, and identifies the benefits of concerted action by the EU as well as the ability of its institutions and Member States to find new and effective solutions to deal with major shocks. The 2023 edition, the second in this annual series, highlights 15 risks related to geopolitics, climate change, health, economics and democracy that could occur in the coming decade, and 10 policy responses to address existing governance capacity and possible ways to enhance capabilities within the EU. Among the options set out are those previously included in European Parliament resolutions, positions from other EU institutions, and policy papers from think tanks and stakeholders."

"Despite global commitments made through the Paris Agreement in 2015 to combat climate change, their translation into national policies has been slow, raising concerns about the feasibility of achieving climate targets. While policies face many obstacles, the political economy is one of the primary impediments to climate action, and urgency to reduce emissions makes slow and gradual approach increasingly insufficient. The report attempts to identify key political economy barriers and explore options to address them through the 4i Framework, considering how institutions, interests, ideas, and influence affect the political economy. The report offers a practical guide to help countries address political economy barriers when implementing climate policies with three prongs: (1) Climate Governance: governments can adapt their institutional framework, in ways that fit with the pre-existing political economy and moving from opportunistic and unstable to strategic and stable climate institutions. Establishing strategic climate governance institutions – such as climate change framework laws, long-term strategies, or just transition frameworks - can alter the political economy, set clear objectives, improve coordination across actors, and improve the ability to monitor progress and hold decisionmakers accountable. (2) Policy Sequencing: policies can be prioritized and sequenced based on dynamic efficiency, considering not only the economic costs and benefits, but also their feasibility and long-term impact on the political economy. The Climate Policy Feasibility Frontier tool can help identify policies that can overcome short-term political economy obstacles, and at the same time improve capacities and change the political economy to facilitate further climate action. (3) Policy Design and Engagement, considers the effective implementation of climate reforms by tactically navigating political economy constraints. This involves engaging citizens to create process legitimacy and reducing and managing distributional effects, not only across but also within income groups."

"Climate change is often seen as an issue of intertemporal consumption trade-off: consume all you want today and face future climate damages, or sacrifice consumption today to implement costly climate policies and avoid future climate damages. When assuming enduring technological progress, a controversial conclusion ensues: to reduce intergenerational inequalities, we should postpone climate policies and let future, richer generations pay. However, the trade-off is more complex: abrupt, extreme, irreversible changes to the climate may cause discontinuities to socio-economic systems, possibly leading to a decline of human population and consumption per capita. The most relevant trade-off would then be between present consumption and the size of future generations. We show that when accounting for a very small risk of catastrophic climate change, stringent climate policies that postpone the catastrophe are optimal. Our results conform with the well-known conclusion that tight carbon budgets are preferred when intergenerational inequality aversion is low. However, by contrast with previous studies, we show that stringent policies are also optimal when inequality aversion is high, as it makes the scenario of a small and poor population unattractive. Views from opposite sides of the ethical spectrum in terms of inequ"ality aversion thus converge and warrant immediate climate action.

"Both energy and the environment are inputs into production, influencing the economy and the overall welfare of the population. While the economy itself has been a central focus of economic history from its inception, energy and the environment have received more limited attention. On the energy side, the relative lack of attention reflects economic historians' focus on labor, capital, and technology. Two areas that have received attention are the effects of energy on the spatial location of economic activity and the importance of coal for the Industrial Revolution. On the environmental side, the relative lack of attention likely reflects the focus on the positive aspects of industrialization and the difficulty of finding data related to air, water, and land pollution. One environmental area that has received attention is water pollution from human waste, which had large mortality impacts, particularly in cities. This essay reviews long run trends in energy use and water and air pollution and then turns to the energy and environmental literatures in economic history. The conclusion offers some thoughts regarding opportunities for further research in energy and the environment."