Structural Change for a Post-Growth Economy: Investigating the Relationship between Embodied Energy Intensity and Labour Productivity

Lukas Hardt, John Barrett, Peter G. Taylor and Timothy Foxon
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Lukas Hardt: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
John Barrett: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Peter G. Taylor: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: Post-growth economists propose structural changes towards labour-intensive services, such as care or education, to make our economy more sustainable by providing meaningful work and reducing the environmentally damaging production of material goods. Our study investigates the assumption underlying such proposals. Using a multi-regional input-output model we compare the embodied energy intensity and embodied labour productivity across economic sectors in the UK and Germany between 1995 and 2011. We identify five labour-intensive service sectors, which combine low embodied energy intensity with low growth in embodied labour productivity. However, despite their lower embodied energy intensities, our results indicate that large structural changes towards these sectors would only lead to small reductions in energy footprints. Our results also suggest that labour-intensive service sectors in the UK have been characterised by higher rates of price inflation than other sectors. This supports suggestions from the literature that labour-intensive services face challenges from increasing relative prices and costs. We do not find similar results for Germany, which is the result of low overall growth in embodied labour productivity and prices. This highlights that structural change is closely associated with economic growth, which raises the question of how structural changes can be achieved in a non-growing economy.

Keywords: post-growth economics; degrowth; structural change; energy footprint; multiregional input-output databases (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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