scholarly journals Sustainability and the measurement of wealth

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Arrow ◽  
Partha Dasgupta ◽  
Lawrence H. Goulder ◽  
Kevin J. Mumford ◽  
Kirsten Oleson

AbstractWe develop and apply a consistent and comprehensive theoretical framework for assessing whether economic growth is compatible with sustaining wellbeing over time. Our approach differs from earlier approaches by concentrating on wealth rather than income. Sustainability is demonstrated by showing that a properly defined comprehensive measure of wealth is maintained through time. Our wealth measure is unusually comprehensive, capturing not only reproducible and human capital but also natural capital, health improvements and technological change. We apply the framework to five countries: the United States, China, Brazil, India and Venezuela. We show that the often-neglected contributors to wealth – technological change, natural capital and health capital – fundamentally affect the conclusions one draws about whether given nations are achieving sustainability. Indeed, even countries that display sustainability differ considerably in the kinds of capital that contribute to it.

2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 2021-2040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hout ◽  
Avery M Guest

We reanalyze Long and Ferrie's data. We find that the association of occupational status across generations was quite similar over time and place. Two significant differences were: (i) American farms in 1880 were far more open to men who had nonfarm backgrounds than were American farms in 1973 or British farms in either century; (ii) of the four cases, the intergenerational correlation was strongest in Britain in 1881. Structural mobility related to, among other things, economic growth and occupational differentiation, affected mobility most in 1970s America. (JEL J62, N31, N32, N33, N34)


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
B. Zorina Khan

Knowledge and ideas, incentives, and institutions are central for understanding technological change and long-term economic growth. This book bridges the current disconnect between the economics of technological change and the analysis of institutions. The discussion draws on detailed information about the experience of over one hundred thousand ingenious men and women in Britain, France, and the United States, whose inventions helped to create the modern knowledge economy. These results overturn longstanding myths of invention about elites, innovation prizes, and “entrepreneurial states,” and instead highlight the pivotal role of property rights and markets in ideas in explaining technological progress and the wealth of nations.


2003 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Beaudry ◽  
David A Green

Over the last 20 years the wage-education relationships in the United States and Germany have evolved very differently, while the education compositions of employment have evolved in a parallel fashion. In this paper, we show how these patterns shed light on the nature of recent technological change and highlight the importance of taking into account movements in the ratio of human capital to physical capital when examining changes in the returns to skill. Our analysis indicates that the United States could have prevented the increase in wage inequality observed in the 1980's by a faster accumulation of physical capital.


1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 747-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Shane

This paper examines rates of entrepreneurship over time in the U.S. economy. It finds strong support for the argument that variations in rates of entrepreneurship follow a Schumpeterian model. Changes in rates of entrepreneurship appear to be driven by changes in technology. Some evidence is also found for the effects of the Protestant Ethic, interest rates, prior rates of entrepreneurship, risk-taking propensity, business failure rates, economic growth, immigration, and age distribution of the population.


1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4I) ◽  
pp. 327-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Lipsey

I am honoured to be invited to give this lecture before so distinguished an audience of development economists. For the last 21/2 years I have been director of a project financed by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and composed of a group of scholars from Canada, the United States, and Israel.I Our brief is to study the determinants of long term economic growth. Although our primary focus is on advanced industrial countries such as my own, some of us have come to the conclusion that there is more common ground between developed and developing countries than we might have first thought. I am, however, no expert on development economics so I must let you decide how much of what I say is applicable to economies such as your own. Today, I will discuss some of the grand themes that have arisen in my studies with our group. In the short time available, I can only allude to how these themes are rooted in our more detailed studies. In doing this, I must hasten to add that I speak for myself alone; our group has no corporate view other than the sum of our individual, and very individualistic, views.


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