Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation in Canada

Kathleen Day and R. Quentin Grafton ()
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Kathleen Day: Associate Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

A chapter in The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2001: The Longest Decade: Canada in the 1990s, 2001, vol. 1 from Centre for the Study of Living Standards

Abstract: In this chapter, Kathleen Day and R. Quentin Grafton explore the relationship between the economy and the environment. One approach sees economic growth leading to environmental degradation by imposing stresses on limited natural resources and ecosystems and by increasing emissions of pollutants. A second perspective argues the opposite relationship holds. Economic growth, once a certain level is achieved, leads to a cleaner environment as the higher income shifts societal preferences toward a better quality of the environment and at the same time provides the resources to produce such an environment. In addition, it is argued that economic growth is increasingly service-based, decoupling pollution from economic activity. The authors examine the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation in Canada. The implication of their findings is that economic growth by no means resolves environmental problems.

Keywords: Growth; Environment; Emissions; Emission; Pollution; Pollutants; Pollutant; Natural Resources; Natural Resource; Non-renewable; Nonrenewable; Renewable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O51 Q32 Q53 Q56 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
ISBN: 0-88645-190-6
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