Construction of Biophysical Indicators for the Catalan Economy: Building a New Conceptual Framework

Carles Manera, Eloi Serrano, Jose Perez-Montiel and Màrian Buil-Fabregà
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Carles Manera: Applied Economics Department, Universitat de les Illes Balears, 07122 Palma, Spain
Eloi Serrano: General and Applied Economics Department, Tecnocampus, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08302 Mataró, Spain
Màrian Buil-Fabregà: General and Applied Economics Department, Tecnocampus, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08302 Mataró, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-20

Abstract: The main objective of this work is to create an environmental vision of the Catalan economy based on various indicators. To do this, we started from the fundamental idea of obtaining new metrics to measure impacts on the economy. The methodology used is focused on the systematization of descriptive statistics and econometric review. In this sense, GDP and GDP per capita are valued as chrematistic units, and biophysical variables are incorporated. For the period 2000–2016, the figures for energy consumption, CO 2 emissions, energy intensity of the economy and water consumption were collected. In addition, demographic evolution and the Gini index were also ordered as factors that contribute to explaining not only population trajectory but also some of the social factors. Greater technological efficiency in regard to environmental aspects is intuited as sensitive to the economic cycle. The study is novel in the panorama of the regional economy of Spain, by incorporating biophysical variables to the applied economic analysis.

Keywords: ecological economy (Q57); regional economy (R10); environmental impact assessment (Q51) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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