China, the US, and Sustainability: Perspectives Based on Comprehensive Wealth

Kenneth Arrow, Partha Dasgupta, Lawrence H. Goulder, Kevin Mumford and Kirsten Oleson

Chapter 4 in Is Economic Growth Sustainable?, 2010, pp 92-144 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Policy analysts and policy makers are keenly interested in whether the performance of national economies is consistent with some notion of “sustainability.” This reflects growing concerns about environmental quality and about the depletion of oil reserves and other natural resource stocks. Economists and natural scientists have offered several notions of sustainability. An especially important notion—and the one on which this chapter focuses—is defined with reference to human wellbeing. This notion of sustainability is achieved if the current generation leaves the next one with the capacity to enjoy the same or higher quality of life. Standard measures in the national income accounts—such as changes in per-capita GDP—may offer hints of whether a nation meets this sustainability criterion, but as is well known these measures do not fully capture many important contributors to well-being, such as the changes in the stocks of natural capital or in environmental quality.

Keywords: Human Capital; Total Factor Productivity; Capital Gain; Natural Capital; Shadow Price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230274280_5

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