Empirical evidence of sustainable development: Causality relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation in Ecuador and Latin America and The Caribbean

This article is an inductive argumentation and an empirical-analytical paradigm that evaluates the actual relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the case of Ecuador and to compare it with Latin America and the Caribbean within a period of analysis from 1960 to 2011. It was developed an Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root (ADF), a Granger Causality Test and a Johansen Cointegration test. It was obtained a VAR model with two variables with a number of 14 lags – VAR2(14) which were tested for which were tested for causality by demonstrating a bidirectionality for Latin America and the Caribbean and a unidirectionality of GDP per capita to CO2 for the Ecuador. Keywords: economic growth, sustainable development, environmental economics. References [1]E. Urteaga, «Las teorías económicas del desarrollo sostenible,» Cuadernos de Economía, vol. 32, nº 89, pp.113-162, 2009. [2]G. 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Social metabolism and bioeconomy Dialogue of knowledge

The general objective of the article is to characterize two analytical categories such as social metabolism and bioeconomy from the perspective of ecological economics as bridges for discussion, critique, and solution of the problems of the 21st century. The methodology is qualitative, the method is a documentary review, and its type is exploratory. The main conclusion is that to solve the problems of the present it is necessary to generate theoretical frameworks such as qualitative and quantitative methods that seek a dialogue of knowledge, since the difficulties that exist are due among other things to the way in which capitalism has mutated for the benefit of large multinationals and not necessarily for human societies with harmful effects on the environment. Therefore, Ecological Economics and Metabolisms are approaches that, being anchored in interdisciplinary discourses, can contribute to generating solutions to problems.