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Growth theory and 'green growth'

2014; Oxford University Press; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/oxrep/gru027

1460-2121

Sjak Smulders, Michael Toman, Caam Cees Withagen,

Global Energy and Sustainability Research

The relatively new and still amorphous concept of "Green Growth" can be understood as a call for balancing longer-term investments in sustaining environmental wealth with nearer-term income growth to reduce poverty.We draw on a large body of economic theory available for providing insights on such balancing of income growth and environmental sustainability.We show that there is no a priori assurance of substantial positive spillovers from environmental policies to income growth, or for a monotonic transition to a "green steady state" along an optimal path.The greenness of an optimal growth path can depend heavily on initial conditions, with a variety of different adjustments occurring concurrently along an optimal path.Factor-augmenting technical change targeting at offsetting resource depletion is critical to sustaining long-term growth within natural limits on the availability of natural resources and environmental services.