environment and economic growth essay

Environmental impact of economic growth

Economic growth means an increase in real output (real GDP). Therefore, with increased output and consumption we are likely to see costs imposed on the environment. The environmental impact of economic growth includes the increased consumption of non-renewable resources, higher levels of pollution, global warming and the potential loss of environmental habitats.

However, not all forms of economic growth cause damage to the environment. With rising real incomes, individuals have a greater ability to devote resources to protecting the environment and mitigate the harmful effects of pollution. Also, economic growth caused by improved technology can enable higher output with less pollution.

Classic trade-off between economic growth and environmental resources

This PPF curve shows a trade-off between non-renewable resources and consumption. As we increase consumption, the opportunity cost implies a lower stock of non-renewable resources.

For example, the pace of global economic growth in the past century has led to a decline in the availability of natural resources such as forests (cut down for agriculture/demand for wood)

• A decline in sources of oil/coal/gas
• Loss of fishing stocks – due to overfishing
• Loss of species diversity – damage to natural resources has led to species extinction.

External costs of economic growth

• Pollution. Increased consumption of fossil fuels can lead to immediate problems such as poor air quality and soot, (London smogs of the 1950s). Some of the worst problems of burning fossil fuels have been mitigated by Clean Air Acts – which limit the burning of coal in city centres. Showing that economic growth can be consistent with reducing a certain type of pollution.
• Less visible more diffuse pollution. While smogs were a very clear and obvious danger, the effects of increased CO2 emissions are less immediately obvious and therefore there is less incentive for policymakers to tackle. Scientists state the accumulation of CO2 emissions have contributed to global warming and more volatile weather. All this suggests economic growth is increasing long-term environmental costs – not just for the present moment, but future generations.
• This graph shows CO2 emissions per capita. It shows a 66% rise in per capita pollution between 1960 and 2014. The total emissions are also higher because of population growth. 1960 to 2014 was a period of strong economic growth and despite the development of new technologies, has failed to halt the rise. The last few years 2011 to 2014 show a levelling – this is only a short time range, but could be due to improved global efforts to reduce pollution. (it was also a period of low economic growth in Western economies)
• Damage to nature . Air/land/water pollution causes health problems and can damage the productivity of land and seas.
• Global warming and volatile weather . Global warming leads to rising sea levels, volatile weather patterns and could cause significant economic costs
• Soil erosion . Deforestation resulting from economic development damages soil and makes areas more prone to drought.
• Loss of biodiversity. Economic growth leads to resource depletion and loss of biodiversity. This could harm future ‘carrying capacity of ecological systems’ for the economy. Though there is uncertainty about the extent of this cost as the benefit of lost genetic maps may never be known.
• Long-term toxins . Economic growth creates long-term waste and toxins, which may have unknown consequences. For example, economic growth has led to increased use of plastic, which when disposed of do not degrade. So there is an ever-increasing stock of plastic in the seas and environment – which is both unsightly but also damaging to wildlife.

U-Shaped curve for economic growth and the environment

One theory of economic growth and the environment is that up to a certain point economic growth worsens the environment, but after that the move to a post-industrial economy – it leads to a better environment.

For example – since 1980, the UK and the US have reduced CO2 emission. The global growth in emissions is coming from developing economies.

Another example – In early days of growth, economies tend to burn coal/wood – which cause obvious pollution. But, with higher incomes, an economy can promote cleaner technology which limits this air pollution. However, in a paper “ Economic growth and carrying capacity ” by Kenneth Arrow et al. they caution about this simplistic u-shape. As the authors state:

“Where the environmental costs of economic activity are home by the poor, by future generation, or by other countries, the incentives to correct the problem are likely to be weak”

• It may be true there is a Kuznets curve for some types of visible pollutants, but it is less true of more diffuse and less visible pollutants. (like CO2)
• The U-shaped maybe true of pollutants, but not the stock of natural resources; economic growth does not reverse the trend to consume and reduce the quantity of non-renewable resources.
• Reducing pollution in one country may lead to the outsourcing of pollution to another, e.g. we import coal from developing economies, effectively exporting our rubbish for recycling and disposal elsewhere.
• Environmental policies tend to deal with pressing issues at hand but ignore future intergenerational problems.

Other models of a link between economic growth and environment

Limits Theory

This suggests that economic growth will damage the environment, and damage will itself start to act as a brake on growth and will force economies to deal with economic damage. In other words, the environment will force us to look after it. For example, if we run down natural resources, their price will rise and this will create an incentive to find alternatives.

This is more pessimistic suggesting that economic growth leads to an ever-increasing range of toxic output and problems, some issues may get solved, but they are outweighed by newer and more pressing problems which are difficult if impossible to overturn.

This model has no faith that the free-market will solve the problem because there is no ownership of air quality and many of the effects are piling up on future generations; these future effects cannot be dealt with by the current price mechanism.

Race to the bottom

This suggests that in the early stages of economic growth, there is little concern about the environment and often countries undermined environmental standards to gain a competitive advantage – the incentive to free-ride on others’ efforts. However, as the environment increasingly worsens, it will reluctantly force economies to reduce the worst effects of environmental damage. This will slow down environmental degradation but not reverse past trends.

Economic growth without environmental damage

Some ecologists argue economic growth invariably leads to environmental damage. However, there are economists who argue that economic growth can be consistent with a stable environment and even improvement in the environmental impact. This will involve

• A shift from non-renewables to renewables A recent report suggests that renewable energy is becoming cheaper than more damaging forms of energy production such as burning coal and in 2018 – this has led to a 39% drop in new construction starts from 2017, and an 84% drop since 2015.
• Social cost pricing. If economic growth causes external costs, economists state it is socially efficient to include the external cost in the price (e.g. carbon tax ). If the tax equals the full external cost, it will lead to a socially efficient outcome and create a strong incentive to promote growth that minimises external costs.
• Treat the environment as a public good . Environmental policy which protects the environment, through regulations, government ownership and limits on external costs can, in theory, enable economic growth to be based on protection of the environmental resource.
• Technological development . It is possible to replace cars running on petrol with cars running on electricity from renewable sources. This enables an increase in output, but also a reduction in the environmental impact. There are numerous possible technological developments which can enable greater efficiency, lower costs and less environmental damage.
• Include quality of life and environmental indicators in economic statistics. Rather than targetting GDP, environmental economists argue we should target a wider range of living standards + living standards + environmental indicators. (e.g. Genuine Progress Indicators GPI )

Source: Ida Kubiszewski et al, “Beyond GDP: Measuring and Achieving Global Genuine Progress,” Ecological Economics, 93, (2013).

• Environmental sustainability

15 thoughts on “Environmental impact of economic growth”

It’s really interesting and useful to me, but I need to know more about the relationship between economic growth, energy consumption and environmental degradation

Verry understandable

GDP is direct related with Energy generation, Carbon dioxide Emission (due to fossil fuel use in electric & motive power generation },Resource Depletion/Degradation, Global Warming and Climate Change. Reports by various agencies including DOE, IPCC, World Bank etc are sources for these information. I have covered this subject in my latest book entitled ”Green Tribology, Green Surface Engineering and Global Warming,ASM International, OH, USA, 2014” with hundreds of references for further studies.Ram, Austin, Texas,

The imminent collapse of ecosystems can only be stopped by economic diminution, dispensing with all unnecessary products and reducing the total production to the most essential. The concept of degrowth should be implemented as fast as possible on a larger scale. Eco-sufficiency and life quality are more important than profit maximization. https://degrowth.org/ https://www.degrowth.info/en/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

Life quality as mentioned above, in my sense, is a little bit vague term. Life quality now is better than the ice-age we had. Environmental protection versus at the cost of economic supportive growth will bring to some good extent non-collapsible ecosystem home.

this essay give me some importance information and it really helpful to me. also, l wanna know how economic growth impact natural environment?

Very useful.

True it has really helped me in my studies. Thank you.

This just helped me with my exam. Thank God!

The size of our planet is finite. Continued growth will eventually result in saturation, starvation etc. 2bn people to the current 8bn in 100 years, and governments all still say growth is a good thing? It might end humans quicker (good for the planet, which has plenty if time to recover) but not so good for us.

Very informative stuff, especially on the environment, quite an eye opener for me and truly intrigued.

I FIND YOUR MATERIALS TO BE VERY EDUCATIVE, KINDLY INCLUDE ME ON YOUR MAILING LIST. REGARDS

i found its very educative & knowledgeable. especially the curve system for environment affect to the gdp. its an eye opener information to the respective researches. informative aspects clear.

I have been suffering with course work but thank you very much

Is the graph at 2.2a (Limits Theory) possible or meaningful? It suggests that beyond a certain level of GDP per capita there are two possible amounts of environmental damage.

Take your pick?

Where next (arrow)?

I suggest this ‘graph’ has not been thought through, and is meaningless.

Comments are closed.

News from the Columbia Climate School

Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability

Steven Cohen

There are political and business leaders who do not care if economic growth causes environmental damage and there are environmental advocates who do not believe you can have economic growth without causing environmental damage. In a New York Times piece on the climate and economics discussions at Davos, Mark Landler and Somini Sengupta reported that:

“ Critics pointed to a contradiction that they said the corporate world had been unable to resolve: how to assuage the appetite for economic growth, based on gross domestic product, with the urgent need to check carbon emissions. “It’s truly a contradiction,” said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “It’s difficult to see if the current G.D.P.-based model of economic growth can go hand-in-hand with rapid cutting of emissions,” he said .”

I find this dialogue a little amazing since it completely ignores the history of America’s success in decoupling the growth of GDP and the growth of environmental pollution. This fact of American environmental and economic life began around 1980, a decade after the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and continues today. It’s really quite simple: with public policies ranging from command-and-control regulations to direct and indirect government subsidies, businesses and governments developed and applied technologies that reduced pollution while allowing continued economic growth. This is not a fantasy, it is history. In the 1960s you could not see the mountains from downtown Los Angeles; today you can. In the 1960s you could not ride a bike on a path next to the Hudson River; today you can. Until 1985, we New Yorkers dumped raw sewage into the Hudson River. Today, with rare exceptions, we treat our sewage waste. And both Los Angeles and New York City have larger economies in 2020 than they had in 1980. In case you believe this progress was due to deindustrialization, the two largest sources of air pollution are power plants and motor vehicles and we have many more of them today than we had in 1980. Both utilize pollution control technology required by regulation under the law.

Environmental protection itself contributes to economic growth. Somebody makes and sells the air pollution control technologies we put on power plants and motor vehicles. Somebody builds the sewage and water treatment facilities. Just as someone makes money off of solar cells and windmills and whoever invents the 1,000-mile high capacity battery that will power electric cars someday will become very, very rich. And environmental amenities are worth money. The cleaner Hudson made the waterfront more suitable for housing development. And the building boom on New York’s west side followed the clean-up of the Hudson River. An apartment across the street from a park will bring a higher price than the same apartment a block away. The revival of New York’s Central Park raised the value of the already high-end real estate bordering the park. Clean air and water, healthy food and preserved nature all benefit human health and result in far more economic benefit than economic cost.

The climate problem is not caused by economic growth, but by the absence of effective public policy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is nothing incompatible with capitalism and environmental protection as long as rules are in place that control the environmental impacts of the products and services we make and use. With those rules in place, a concern for environmental sustainability can and will permeate everyday decision-making in the private, nonprofit and governmental organizations we all benefit from.

I’ve written often about the evolution of the field of management over the past century or so and that a concern for sustainability is the newest trend in the development of more sophisticated organizational management. In the 20th century, we saw the field of management absorb the development of mass production, social psychology, accounting, information management, satellite and cellular communications, globalization and now a concern for the physical dimensions of environmental sustainability. Sustainability managers continue to lead an organization’s marketing, strategy, finance and work processes but they also seek to assess their use of energy, water and other materials and work to reduce waste and environmental impacts. Just as finance staff, reinforced by the Security and Exchange Commission rules learned to identify and reduce self-dealing, conflict of interest and fraud; sustainability staff reinforced by EPA rules look to identify and reduce organizational practices that damage the environment.

On the production side, organizational managers work to increase environmental sustainability, but on the consumption side, consumers are not only buying green but changing patterns of consumption that also help reduce environmental damage. Going to a gym, riding a bike or eating a salad are all activities that add to the GDP. But so does taking your private jet to your ski lodge, driving in your SUV to the ski slopes, and eating a steak. All consumption behaviors are not created equal and do not have the same impact on environmental sustainability. More sustainable lifestyles are emerging and they can be detected in consumption patterns. For example, young Americans seem less interested in owning cars than their older siblings and parents did. Ride-sharing, bike sharing and other transit options have become feasible due to the development of the smartphone. But sitting in an Uber or driving your own car are both economic activities that are counted in the GDP.

These consumption trends are more influenced by changing cultural norms than by public policy, and typically should not be subjects of policymaking. Exceptions might include consumption that has a direct negative impact on others such as driving while intoxicated or smoking in a public space. The environmental impact of consumption can also be reduced by new technologies. For example, streaming music and video has far less environmental impact than videos and discs that used to be manufactured, packaged and shipped before they were used.

It is ironic that some environmentalists along with some climate deniers share the belief that we must trade off economic growth and environmental protection. We can and must accomplish both. A reason that we cannot abandon economic development is that most people in the developed world like the way they live and will not give up their way of life. Asking them to do so dooms environmental advocates to political marginalization and failure. Due to the internet, even very poor people in the developing world see the way we live here, want it, and are demanding that their political regimes help them achieve their dreams. The absence of economic development leads to political instability and the potential for violence. Climate scientists often mention the impact of climate change on political instability and the phenomenon of climate refugees is well documented. But the path to climate mitigation is not through slower economic growth, but through economic growth that is steered toward environmental sustainability and away from gratuitous environmental destruction.

One of the first sustainability books I ever read was Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature. McHarg developed cluster development as an alternative to suburban sprawl. The idea was that rather than providing every home with a quarter acre of land and their own large yard, you would build the housing in the one area of the building site that would cause the least damage to natural drainage and eco-systems and preserve the rest of the land as a parkland for hiking and viewing. It turned out that most of the outdoor access people used in their homes was on their patios, and that suburban yards were not simply ecological disasters, but a burdensome waste for most homeowners. (This past June a wonderful piece summarizing McHarg’s ideas and influence appeared on the City Lab website and it is well worth reading.) McHarg demonstrated that with care, humans could build urban developments that might minimize rather than maximize environmental damage.

Sloppy management, the hunger for easy money and short-term profits, and ideological rigidity lead some to believe the environment must be sacrificed for economic growth. The belief that capitalism is evil and inevitably causes environmental destruction leads others to believe that sustainable economic development is not feasible. My view is that with enlightened design, sustainability management and cutting-edge technology we can harness human ingenuity to the practical problems of environmentally sustainable economic development. We can build and live in sustainable cities and end the climate and ecological crises that seem so overwhelming today.

Related Posts

Finding Public Space in a Crowded New York City

From Sustainability Mirage to Sustainability Management

Scope 3 Carbon Emissions and the Management of Supply Chains

Recent record-breaking heat waves have affected communities across the world. The Extreme Heat Workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to advance the state of knowledge, identify community needs, and develop a framework for evaluating risks with a focus on climate justice. Register by June 15

Steve, I so appreciate you perspective and using hiding in plain sight history to debunk conventional wisdom.

Can we really reduce resource extraction and pollution (including carbon) and maintain growth as currently measured by gross GDP? Renewable energy needed to replace existing consumption is itself a mass industrialisation operation. If the measure of growth was shifted to well-being, and energy and resource consumption were curtailed, and as you point out radical rational approaches to efficiency were implemented by regulations (driven by well-being measures) then I find it easier to imagine.

I think you are missing one important part of the criticism that capitalism is facing, that is income gap not only within the borders but outside the national borders. Income gap is one of the leading reasons for excessive consumption by some people. Most supporters of capitalism seem to stand against this idea. There is another issue of unfair trade policies and I don’t see most capitalist/ industrialized countries taking any clear stand on this issue in the near future. It also does not help that we keep refusing to acknowledge some quite dire problems capitalism has created that directly led to unsustainable habits. I don’t know whether the solution is reformed capitalism or some other economic system but the first step is not to deny some very fundamental issues with the current system and I will give you hint – look from the perspective of the most underprivileged because without that you are just speaking to your bubble.

Very well said. Often wondering whether it is possible to reform capitalism?

It seems to me that the US simply moved its pollution and production-based emissions elsewhere, such as China. If a US-based company moves its dirty factory to China, then it magically becomes “Chinese pollution” rather than “US pollution.” It’s a neat trick, but let’s not pat ourselves on the back. (We see the same bait and switch tactic used with carbon emissions.)

The point is that, in a global economy, it is incorrect to think in terms of any single country in isolation. The environmental impact of the US economy must be properly accounted by tracing everything we consume all the way back to the extraction of raw resources (e.g., mining, pumping) and every intermediate refinement, production, cultivation, assembly, transport, and processing step along the way…in ALL of the places in the world where it occurs. If such an accounting were made, I can imagine that the US environmental footprint in the world has never stopped growing, even if our own neighborhood is cleaner.

The point is that, in a global economy, it is incorrect to think in terms of any single country in isolation. The environmental impact of the US economy must be properly accounted by tracing everything we consume all the way back to the extraction of raw resources (e.g., mining, oil pumping) and every intermediate refinement, production, cultivation, assembly, transport, and processing step along the way…in ALL of the places in the world where it occurs.

how countries of the Global South can achieve economic development whilst maintaining environmental integrity for future generations.

The “climate crisis” is just the most obvious existential risk threatening the “ecosystem services” on which our civilization depends. If our nonstop growth-addicted capitalist economy were a species, then the climate crisis would be what ecologists call a “limiting factor”. It happens to be the most dire but it certainly isn’t the only existential threat to ecosystem services that support our civilization. If we magically fix climate, but fail to kick the nonstop growth addiction habit, then we will exploit the earth’s systems until some other limiting factor threatens to bring down civilization. This is really quite simple. We don’t know how to do capitalism without growth, but in a finite system anything that grows nonstop and forever will kill the host. Part of me feels like us advocates of some sort of “steady state” economy are like reformers urging chain smokers to quit cold turkey. And the nonstop “green” growth advocates tell the smokers they can puff away if they switch to low tar while calling us shills for Big Tobacco. It might be hard to get away from economic growth, and it might be impossible. But as Sarek said to Spock in the Trek reboot, “What is necessary is NEVER unwise.”

There’s no reason why a green revolution shouldn’t create countless jobs. I suspect paid scaremongering propaganda backed by fossil fuel companies has created a false dichotomy. Directing our resources towards repairing our damaged environment, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and redirecting those subsidies towards clean energy and all the jobs that would go with it seems like a win win solution.

As a concerned fourteen-year-old, I believe we have to digress from making this a political issue. It is at its heart a choice between life or death. Economic growth won’t matter when all that’s left on Earth are dust storms, heat, and a few lucky survivors. It’s our choice to make, and there is only one correct answer to this issue: go renewable or face the consequences.

Mr. Cohen cites lots of facts. but in the end, climate change(planet pollution) is getting worse. Either that, or the climatologists are all wrong.

Decoupling is a dangerous fairy tale fo promote. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0164733

Thank you. This is a counter to the hand-waving piece above.

How about the consequences of economic development processes to the sustainability of natural resources

Both developing and underdeveloped countries have left out the issue of climate change action as they all fail to provide enabling conditions for policy implementation. Land reform policies, industrialisation policies and the use of weapons of mass destruction planned wars that appear more economical than political have grievously affected the environment. Policies sound better during international conferences but their implementation and evaluation remain peripheral to the direct beneficiaries—an outcry to community engagement for policy implementation.

I really needed this for a article I was writing. I wanted to see others perspective. Thank you 🙂

I also like all the reasonings you put. You backup what you have said. All the other articles I’ve been to don’t really specify.

Dude, this is a baldface lie, and it is typical of the level of denial about how the normal operation of any economy akin to what we have thrives on producing endless energy consumming revenue streams of increasingly false value. There is no way to grow MATERIAL production, creating new things while perfectly serviceable older things go to the trash by denied design, I see this every damn day, we lie about, lie, lie, lie, this is madness, anyone who failes to confront the problem of waste and growth and value emptiness is both deluded and furthering the problem, we are drowning in unneeded luxury and convenience and we are worsening our plight furthering the status quo, we seem hell bent on collapse by now. THIS IS A PATENT FALSEHOOD: :” The climate problem is not caused by economic growth, but by the absence of effective public policy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Dude, we need to cosume less energy per capita and globally, nothing less will mitigate a thing, why ar\re people so deluded about what we really need to do here, this is AUTO-BIOCIDE by now!!!

Get the Columbia Climate School Newsletter

A ship carrying liquefied natural gas passing by the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm in western France, 30 September 2022. Photo by Stephane Mahe/Reuters

We need to find a way for human societies to prosper while the planet heals. So far we can’t even think clearly about it

by Ville Lähde   + BIO

At the heart of current environmental debates is a crucial question: is economic growth possible without environmental destruction? Climate change, biodiversity degradation, overexploitation of natural resources and many forms of pollution are evident problems, and their recognition is backed by a strong consensus of the sciences. It is a sign of the times that most people no longer deny the maxim that endless material growth is impossible on a limited planet. There are limits to growth, material and ecological. Only people dreaming about asteroid mining fuelled by fusion and facilitated by terraforming deny this tenet. Despite being often super-rich, like Elon Musk, in this regard they are fringe. Recognition of key environmental problems is becoming increasingly widespread, even if this is not met by necessary action.

However, alongside this is the dominant and widely accepted economic belief that growth is necessary – economic growth. It is needed not only to feed and clothe the poor of the world, but it is necessary for the energy and momentum of societies everywhere. Actually, if one listens to the eulogies of economic growth by politicians in wealthy countries, like my home country Finland, the latter is usually the main argument. Growth is needed, or else unemployment soars, pensions are unpaid, and debts accumulate.

It is widely acknowledged that in recent decades and centuries, economic growth has caused environmental problems. The severity of the ecological crisis is debated, some of it even denied, but this is the big picture. However, in recent years there has been a consistent effort to resolve this tension between economic growth and ecological limits with the notion of ‘decoupling’. (This should not be confused with the ‘decoupling’ of global trade and ‘friendshoring’ that is debated around US-China relations.) The basic idea is that economic growth can continue and literally decouple, or part ways, with material growth and environmental degradation. Growth can be green.

There are surely ecological problems, but they are not insurmountable. Just like the ‘dark Satanic Mills’ were cleaned, just like ozone depletion was overcome, any and all environmental problems will be resolved with growth, not without it. The connection between economic growth and negative impacts can be broken.

B ut not everyone agrees, and decoupling has become a hot topic in public debates. In February 2023, The New York Times published Paul Krugman’s column ‘Wonking Out: Why Growth Can Be Green’. Krugman stated that ‘it’s possible to decouple growth from environmental harm’ and aimed his column explicitly at people who claim that economic growth and environmental protection cannot be combined. He saw this putatively false claim emanating both from environmentalists (or the Left) and from people who oppose environmental policies. In effect, the former were labelled as useful idiots for the latter.

To back himself up, Krugman drew statistics from the Our World in Data site. Similar sentiments have been published in articles on the site over the years. In his article ‘How Much Economic Growth Is Necessary to Reduce Global Poverty Substantially?’ (2021), Max Roser stated forcefully that it will be possible to decouple economic growth from environmental harm. He too aimed his critique at an opposing group of people. For him, doubters of decoupling do not take poverty seriously:

If those who say that it is not possible to decouple growth from environmental harm are right, then the future will be bleak. If indeed there should be no possibility to sufficiently decouple growth from environmental impacts then the future will be either one of continuing global poverty or one of continuing environmental destruction, or both.

In the article ‘Shrink Emissions, Not the Economy’ (2018), also published on the Our World in Data website, four authors made a case for decoupling, focusing on climate emissions. They too noted how denying decoupling brings anti-environmentalists and some environmentalists into the same camp. However, now the opposition was named specifically: ‘degrowthers’. In a nutshell, degrowth is a loose intellectual and political movement that calls for stopping the kind of economic growth that is driving ecological destruction.

The idea is that environmental harm increases as countries become more affluent but tapers off after that

One vocal representative of the degrowth movement is Timothée Parrique. He wrote a detailed response to Krugman, accusing him of cherry-picking his evidence. Parrique ended his response with strong words:

The story of decoupling is reassuring; it’s a don’t worry, everything is fine, everything is going to be okay kind of thing to say. And this is precisely why that story is dangerous. As ecosystems are getting nightmarishly worse, the fable of green growth is acting as a kind of macroeconomic greenwashing, especially when mobilised to discredit other, more radical solutions to the ecological crisis.

A similar public exchange of words took place after Andrew McAfee’s combative essay ‘Why Degrowth Is the Worst Idea on the Planet’ (2020) was published in Wired . He claimed that the world’s richest countries have learned how to reduce their ‘footprint on Earth’. He also attacked degrowthers as being practically anti-science:

Some voices in the conversation about the environment seem wedded to the idea that degrowth is necessary, and they are unwilling or unable to walk away from it, no matter the evidence.

Referring to examples of cleaning local air pollution, he invoked another specialist concept: ‘the environmental Kuznets curve’. The idea is that environmental harm increases as countries become more affluent but tapers off after that. In a nutshell: only wealthy societies can really take care of the environment.

One of the big names in the degrowther circles, Jason Hickel, responded to McAfee on his blog. Like Parrique, he referred to the extensive research literature on the decoupling question, and pointed out how partial or false is the rosy picture about wealthy societies. He also claimed that, in criticising Hickel and degrowth in general, McAfee had distorted his views. His ending was, however, diplomatic:

My appeal to McAfee: let’s try to get beyond this sort of thing and engage more honestly with the empirical and theoretical work that has been done, so we can have more meaningful conversations. If we are going to realise our shared goals, we can and must do better.

S hould not this engagement with empirical work and honest debate just be a matter of looking at the facts, checking out the right statistics? But this is not a simple matter. If we want to be serious about the issue, we have to frame the question properly. Meaningful discussion and even disagreement must happen within a shared frame.

Certain key questions have to be answered before any facts can be brought to bear on this issue. First of all: what kind of decoupling are we talking about? Is it relative or absolute? (More on this below.) Secondly: what is decoupled? It does not suffice to answer ‘environmental harm’ or ‘footprint on Earth’. As I wrote in an earlier essay for Aeon , environmental problems are legion, and aggregating them is highly problematic. And thirdly: from what are we supposed to decouple? What should keep growing?

If these questions are not answered, any discussion and debate will end up in confusion. There are no meaningful generic answers to the questions ‘Is decoupling possible?’ or ‘Is decoupling happening?’

If the current situation is unsustainable, relative decoupling is not enough

If decoupling of environmental impacts (or use of natural resources) from economic growth takes place, it can be of two kinds. It can be relative or absolute . In relative decoupling, both graphs keep climbing up, but environmental impacts grow slower. The speeds of growth decouple relative to each other. But environmental impacts still keep getting worse.

Depending on what kinds of impacts you are talking about – local air pollution, deforestation, climate emissions, plastic pollution – the critical limits are set differently. Perhaps some increase of some environmental impact can be stomached somewhere , if it is necessary to raise people from poverty or grow more food, for example. But if the current situation is unsustainable, relative decoupling is not enough. You need to diminish the impacts. When connected to the growth imperative, this means you need absolute decoupling. The economy grows while the impacts decrease.

It is, however, not sufficient that the impacts decrease. This has to take place fast enough. Again, here, environmental problems differ in their ecological dynamics, but with many there are specific timetables of mitigation. With climate change, you have the aspirational ‘safety limits’ of 1.5°C or 2°C and the carbon budgets that dictate the target years of net zero. In general, when there are serious risks of ecosystems (and, with them, human systems) flipping into new dangerous regimes, so-called ‘tipping points’, or else of severe irreversible damage, meeting the timetable becomes crucial.

B ut what do we need to decouple absolutely? As environmental problems differ in their geographic scale, their causes and their ecological dynamics, not all decouplings are equal. Successful elimination of local air pollution in cities is often used as an example of decoupling. However, one can quite easily understand that such pollution can be combatted by legislation or technological fixes irrespective of economic growth or decline. If certain practices are banned or made mandatory, that is it. As Parrique notes, air quality can very well be better in poorer circumstances.

Perhaps declining climate emissions is a more representative example? First of all, climate emissions are directly connected to the overall activity in society, especially energy production. If there is absolute decoupling there, that says something more general than, say, removing sewage from streets. Secondly, it is possible, quite self-evidently, to decrease climate emissions while growing the economy. If you shut down a lot of coal plants and transition to low-emission energy sources, emissions go down. Of course the economy can grow: new power systems have to be constructed, old ones dismantled. Eventually, societies will run into the realm of ‘hard to abate’ emissions from industry and agriculture, but the opening salvos are no-brainers. And, as Krugman notes, they can be good business.

As the climate scientist Zeke Hausfather noted in 2021, absolute decoupling of climate emissions has taken place already in many countries, mostly affluent Western countries that have increasingly moved away from coal and have more climate legislation. Nowhere has emission decline been fast enough: no country is on track to meet the stringent emission-cut targets. Note that absolute decoupling in these cases is true even if consumption-based emissions, that is, emissions inherent in imported goods, are counted in. Some decades ago, domestic emission decline was still somewhat illusory: it was mainly due to ‘externalising’ emissions through trade, that is, buying stuff from less wealthy countries. Since then, emission decline has stemmed more and more from domestic changes in energy production. Externalisation of some emissions takes place still, but it is not large enough to offset the general decline in emissions. And, of course, energy systems can change in the export countries too. Just look at China. Too little, too late, most likely, but still good news.

Because the current situation is unsustainable, the sustainable way is down – towards material degrowth

However, it is crucial to keep in mind that behind the façade of ‘the environmental crisis’ there is a legion of diverse issues. It is surely possible to lower climate emissions while other problems get worse: overfishing, plastic pollution, freshwater scarcity, erosion of farmland, deforestation… and, especially in its myriad forms, biodiversity decline .

Actually, climate mitigation, if done wrong, can end up exacerbating other problems. Bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) is inherent in most climate scenarios. In a nutshell, it means that energy crops are grown, burned for energy, and then most of the emissions are captured technologically and stored somewhere. Large-scale cultivation of energy crops threatens to cause further deforestation, soil degradation and biodiversity decline, and added pressure on already scarce water resources in many areas. Bioenergy in general, for example excessive reliance on forest wood as fuel, tends to erode biodiversity. And many countries are waking up to realise (like Finland) that, as carbon sinks and storages in forests diminish, the putative green credentials of wood go up in smoke.

This is why, increasingly in studies of decoupling, extraction of natural resources has become a favourite metric. It is a rough tool, of course. Overfishing and sustainable fishing are different. Clearcutting rainforests is a particularly bad form of forestry. Sand is not herrings is not uranium is not apples is not oranges. If done carelessly, using flows of natural resources as a metric risks all kinds of problems of aggregation. Quality is paramount: we cannot read from those flows what we can and should do.

But we can read what we should not do. We are in an unsustainable and potentially disastrous situation with many dimensions of the environmental crisis. And material flows, the sheer amount of stuff extracted, processed, transported, used and discarded simply is the key driver for a variety of central forms of environmental impact. Because the current situation is unsustainable, the sustainable way is down – towards material degrowth. Here the analogy with climate emissions breaks down: there is no evidence of economy-wide absolute resource decoupling.

Economic growth all over the world is still strongly coupled with growing material consumption. Modern life has not ‘dematerialised’ with the promise of paperless offices, with internet and with the growing service economy. What’s more, ‘externalisation’ of resource use is still a fact of life. It is not analogous with the case of climate emissions. This makes sense: importing fruit and coffee from water-scarcity areas still uses up water; stuff produced with cleaner energy still needs raw materials.

This is why answers to the question ‘Is decoupling happening?’ can diverge radically depending on what environmental metric you are using and in which part of the world you are. And there is still the other question: ‘Is it happening fast enough?’ If not, the question arises whether it could happen faster without the growth imperative.

T hirdly, from what are we supposed to decouple? Remember, the issue of decoupling is not about whether environmental pressures can be diminished. Of course they can be. The issue is whether this can happen in the context of continuous economic growth. Some even claim that it is possible only with economic growth, the engine of innovation. At the extreme, the most technologically obsessed see acceleration through the worst of it, ‘burning through’ the historical bottleneck, as the only answer. We can clean up afterwards. Staying still is stagnation. But coining a phrase from James Baldwin, the fire next time can burn down the house and the foundations, along with the fire brigade.

The whole idea of decoupling remains tied to economic growth, and in our world that still means GDP. Pretty much everyone agrees that it is a crappy metric, but still those who argue for the necessity of growth end up arguing for continued GDP growth. Decoupling gives this crude tool a new lease of life. Alongside economic growth, people are of course talking about poverty elimination, education, ending hunger and creating human wellbeing. But the question is, are these things fatefully tethered to increasing GDP and thus increasing extraction of natural resources?

A crucial ancillary question is, does the world need to see economic growth for everyone, everywhere, all the time? This is actually an issue pointed out repeatedly by degrowther figures like Parrique and Hickel. We live in a world of deep systemic inequality within regions and between regions, with overconsumption and underconsumption, with humongous carbon and material footprints for some, and specific problems related to poverty and insecurity for some. The latter people surely need economic growth, and material and energetic growth. But the future will be bleak, if bettering the lot of billions requires overconsumption by the affluent minority.

The real issue is whether diverse environmental pressures are relieved fast enough to safeguard our continuation

This perhaps is the great lure of the idea of decoupling: it promises that everything can change without anything really changing. We are already on our way to a better world, so any kind of systemic change is not needed. All boats are raised, wealth trickles down, and so on.

In the end, however, the whole toing and froing about decoupling may itself be a confusing dead end. It anchors us to the abstraction of GDP, to any idea of aggregated and undifferentiated growth and, conversely, it seems to invite an equally abstract environmental metric as a counterpoint. Decoupling A from B. It plays havoc with contextuality.

The crux of the matter is not whether decoupling is possible. The real issue is whether, both globally and in regions all around the world, diverse environmental pressures are relieved fast enough to safeguard the continuation of our societies. It would be quite nice if we also safeguarded the continuation and resilience of the diverse ecosystems we live among. In the end, these goals are connected, even if the connections are not always clearly defined, and thus are easily ignored. Living without a stable life support system is not possible. And, of course, the world is inhabited by other beings too.

It is a secondary question how the economic accounting of that development is made. GDP itself is a creature conjured by accounting, and not a stable one at that. Changes in accounting practices can and have caused shifts of GDP without corresponding changes in material reality. So perhaps clever collective accounting tricks can be devised to put a positive economic sign for reaching a safe ecological zone for our societies. That would be a radical change.

The other crux of the matter is not growth, it is wellbeing. This has been grasped beautifully under the banner ‘A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries’. Starting with a landmark article in Nature in 2018, a group of researchers has tried to answer a devilishly difficult question. Is it possible to realise sufficiently good life for all people of the world, even until the global population stabilises, and remain within a safe ecological zone? Currently, no society in the world manages to do both. And, conversely to what the eulogists of decoupling repeatedly state, the wealthier societies tend to overstep overall ecological boundaries more, even if they succeed better in some dimensions.

Answering this question, and making it a reality, will require contextual understanding and tailored solutions. It requires changing the provision systems of societies, the ways we are housed, clothed, fed, healed, transported, educated and so on. People live in different circumstances, and societies too face different challenges. There is no one grand question of decoupling that needs answering. We need many better questions and a legion of answers for the host of our problems.

Economic history

Economics 101

Why introductory economics courses continued to teach zombie ideas from before economics became an empirical discipline

Walter Frick

Illness and disease

Getting past ‘it’s IBS’

While science illuminates the gut-brain relationship, doctors remain ignorant and dismissive of patients with gut problems

Technology and the self

Tomorrow people

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?

Roger Luckhurst

Nations and empires

Chastising little brother

Why did Japanese Confucians enthusiastically support Imperial Japan’s murderous conquest of China, the homeland of Confucius?

Shaun O’Dwyer

Stories and literature

Her blazing world

Margaret Cavendish’s boldness and bravery set 17th-century society alight, but is she a feminist poster-girl for our times?

Francesca Peacock

Ecology and environmental sciences

To take care of the Earth, humans must recognise that we are both a part of the animal kingdom and its dominant power

Hugh Desmond

• Student Outreach
• Research Support
• Executive Education
• News & Announcements
• Jobs & Opportunities
• Annual Reports
• Faculty Working Papers
• Building State Capability
• Colombia Education Initiative
• Evidence for Policy Design
• Reimagining the Economy
• Social Protection Initiative
• Past Programs
• Speaker Series
• Global Empowerment Meeting (GEM)

Economic Growth and the Environment

In this section, cid working paper no. 56, environment and development paper no. 4.

Theodore Panayotou

Will the world be able to sustain economic growth indefinitely without running into resource constraints or despoiling the environment beyond repair? What is the relationship between steadily increasing incomes and environmental quality? This paper builds on the author's earlier work (1993), in which he argued that the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality – whether inverse or direct -- is not fixed along a country's development path. Indeed, he hypothesized, it may change as a country reaches a level of income at which people can demand and afford a more efficient infrastructure and a cleaner environment. This implied inverted-U relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth came to be known as the "Environmental Kuznets Curve," by analogy with the income-inequality relationship postulated by Kuznets (1965, 1966).

The objective of this paper is to critically review, synthesize and interpret the literature on the relationship between economic growth and environment. This literature has followed two distinct but related strands of research: an empirical strand of ad hoc specifications and estimations of a reduced form equation, relating an environmental impact indicator to income per capita; and a theoretical strand of macroeconomic models of interaction between environmental degradation and economic growth, including optimal growth, endogenous growth and overlapping generations models. The author concludes that the macroeconomic models generally support the empirical findings of the Environmental Kuznets Curve literature. He suggests further empirical investigation related to the assumption of additive separability, as well as development of additional macroeconomic models that allow for a more realistic role for government.

Keywords: economic growth, environment, Kuznets Curve

JEL codes: O11, O13

• Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• FAS Theses and Dissertations
• Communities & Collections
• By Issue Date
• FAS Department
• Quick submit
• Waiver Generator
• DASH Stories
• Accessibility
• COVID-related Research
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• By Collections
• By Departments

Essays on International Trade, Economic Growth and the Environment

Access status, citable link to this page, collections.

• FAS Theses and Dissertations [6566]

Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)

Show Statistical Information

• Open supplemental data
• Reference Manager
• Simple TEXT file

People also looked at

Original research article, environmental protection or economic growth the effects of preferences for individual freedoms.

• Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, Prague, Czechia

Environmental protection is often seen in conflict with individual freedom and economic growth. The proponents of environmental protection suggest that the environment is a global resource that must be protected for future generations, even at the expense of economic growth and individual freedoms. The opponents claim that environmental protection should not come at the expense of individual rights and liberties, economic growth included. This paper studies the associations between public preferences for environmental protection, economic growth, and individual freedoms in eleven post-soviet countries on a representative dataset ( N = 20006, age 18+, M ± SD: 46,04 ± 17,07; 58% women, 46,8% upper education). Methodologically we rely on correlations, principal component analysis, and ordinal regression analyses. The results suggest that preferences for most personal freedoms studied predict environmental protection and economic growth preferences. In addition, preferences for civil rights, rights for democracy, gender equality, income inequality, and the low role of the army in politics predicted higher preferences for environmental protection and economic growth. Interestingly, the government’s right to video surveillance in public areas, though diminishing personal freedoms in terms of anonymity, predicted higher preferences for environmental protection and economic growth. The importance of God in lives proved to increase preferences for environmental protection but was negatively related to preferences for economic growth. We suggest the government communicate the need for environmental protection as a part of the rights for individual freedom to live in a clean environment.

1 Introduction

Increasing environmental degradation has received considerable attention from policymakers and academic communities ( Sinha et al., 2020 ; Cheng et al., 2021 ). Governments spelled out mitigation strategies for addressing the challenges of climate change in Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) adopted in the Paris Agreement. The European Union and national governments have set clear objectives of where to be by 2050, under the EU priorities and Green Deal policies and with the support of dedicated research programs, legislation, and funding. Numerous environmental regulations around the globe abound.

The literature indicates that the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality is U-shaped (Environmental Kuznets Curve, EKC). While economic performance in poorer countries leads to a decrease in environmental quality, the association is reversed in richer countries ( Shahbaz et al., 2013 ; Stern, 2017 ; Anwar et al., 2022 ). Research shows that Post Soviet Union countries have not yet achieved the turning point ( Yang et al., 2017 ; Hasanov et al., 2019 ; Hasanov et al., 2023 ), meaning the tradeoff between economic growth and environmental quality is very apparent and calls for the implementation of environmental regulations.

Environmental regulations may reduce immediate economic performance by imposing additional costs and risks ( Nikolaou et al., 2014 ; Demertzidis et al., 2015 ; Hashmi and Alam, 2019 ). Environmental regulations also motivate firms to adopt new technologies, which may increase economic growth in the long run ( Sarkodie et al., 2019 ; Fan and Hao, 2020 ; Dechezleprêtre, et al., 2022 ). Less developed countries are shown to be less willing to invest in long-term environmental protection at the expense of immediate satisfaction of their material needs (the poverty-induced environmental degradation, Masron and Subramaniam, 2019 ; Moseley, 2001 ). In fact, poverty is shown among the principal sources of environmental damage across the countries ( Masron and Subramaniam, 2019 ). Thus, the tradeoff between economic performance and environmental protection is essential, especially in less abundant countries ( Sarkodie and Strezov, 2019 ; Güngör et al., 2021 ; Al-Mulali et al., 2022 ).

Besides economic performance, environmental regulations inevitably affect individual freedoms, including the freedoms of democracy and the corresponding role of the government. Economic and political freedoms indicate systemic differences across countries and are shown to significantly affect environmental degradation, as well as the preferences and costs of environmental protection ( Zhang et al., 2019 ; Bruun, 2020 ; Halvorson, 2021 ; Anwar et al., 2022 ). However, preferences for political and economic freedoms are rarely considered in predicting preferences for environmental protection ( Joshi and Beck, 2018 ).

This paper aims to study the role of the preferences for individual freedoms and the role of the government in predicting preferences for environmental protection and economic growth in Post-Soviet countries. Since many of the Post-Soviet countries are highly religious, we also hypothesize that religiosity contributes to the preferences for environmental protection (similar to Eom, et al., 2021a ). The following hypotheses are tested:

• H1. Preferences for individual freedoms predict preference for environmental protection.

• H2. The preferred role of the government predicts preferences for environmental protection.

• H3. Religiosity affects the preference for environmental protection.

We rely on a representative survey-based dataset from eleven Post-Soviet countries (N = 20006, age 18+, M ± SD: 46,04 ± 17,07; 58% women, 46,8% upper education). As economic performance is of immense importance in less-affluent post-soviet countries, we also test a similar set of hypotheses to predict the preferences for economic growth as one of the country’s priorities. This enabled us to contrast factors predicting environmental protection to factors predicting preference for economic growth at the expense of other social goals, such as military spending or making the cities and countryside more beautiful. Methodologically we rely on exploratory principal component analysis to study the structure of the preferences for individual freedoms and logistic regression analyses to test the hypotheses.

The paper is structured as follows. The first section discusses the theoretical debate on the association between the freedom and environment protection. (false) dilemma between economic growth and environmental protection and briefly summarizes the literature on environmental regulations, the role of the government and individual freedom. The next sections describe data and models. The following sections present and discuss the results. The last sections conclude.

2 Freedom and environment protection. The theoretical debate

Freedom and environmental sustainability are two concepts that are closely linked ( Hannis, 2015 ). Sustainable development is defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” ( United Nations Brundtland Commission, 1987 ). To achieve this, it is essential that all members of society are able to make decisions freely and have access to resources so that they can make informed choices ( Boyle, 2007 ).

Environmental protection often conflicts with individual freedom ( Boyle, 2007 ; Shelton, 2012 ) though both are often seen as parts of human rights ( Osofsky, 2005 ). On one side of the debate, people argue that environmental protection must take precedence over individual freedom. Conversely, some argue that individual freedom should not be sacrificed in the name of environmental protection ( Boyle, 2007 ; Shelton, 2012 ). Those who argue in favor of prioritizing environmental protection over individual freedom say that the environment is a global resource that must be protected for future generations. They argue that individual freedom must be sacrificed to ensure that the environment is preserved and the global climate crisis is addressed. On the other hand, those who emphasize the importance of individual freedom argue that environmental protection should not come at the expense of individual rights and liberties. They argue that environmental regulations must be implemented in a way that does not overly restrict individual freedom ( Boyle, 2007 ; Shelton, 2012 ).

The debate over environmental protection and individual freedom is complex and difficult to resolve. It is important to recognize that both sides of the argument have valid points and that there is no easy answer. It is also important to recognize that the two sides of the debate are not mutually exclusive and that a compromise can be reached those respects both sides of the argument. For example, it is possible to implement environmental regulations in a way that does not overly restrict individual freedom while still achieving the goal of protecting the environment ( Klöpfer, 1996 ).

2.1 Economic growth or environmental protection? the (false) dilemma?

The role of environmental sustainability in limiting economic growth was first discussed in the aftermath of the Limits to Growth report ( Meadows, et al., 1972 ; Hannis, 2015 ). Leading economists widely recognized the depletion of non-renewable resources as a factor constraining long-term economic growth ( Solow, 1974 ; Stiglitz, 1974 ; Hartwick, 1978 ). The theories of sustainable development then emphasized limiting economic growth for the sake of environmental protection.

Environmental protection helps with many critical societal goals, such as long-term sustainability, a cleaner environment, reduction in climate change, and healthier food. However, it also requires additional resources and brings risks and limitations. It also creates new industries and promotes new technologies, which in the long run may increase economic performance ( Panayotou, 2016 ; Nikolaou, et al., 2021 ). On the firm level, better environmental performance can increase revenues via better access to particular markets, differentiating products, and selling pollution-control technology ( Ambec and Lanoie, 2008 ). Moreover, better environmental regulation increases resource use efficiency and, under some conditions, can increase economic performance (Porter hypothesis, Porter and Van der Linde, 1995 ; Brännlund and Lundgren, 2009 ). In addition, some factors, such as renewable energy, can positively impact both environmental protection and economic growth ( Hasanov et al., 2021 ); The total effect of environmental regulations on economic performance is unclear. The following Table 1 illustrates the two opposing views of literature on the topic.

TABLE 1 . The effect of environmental regulations on economic performance—two opposing views.

Ideally, environmental regulations should correspond to environmental quality. The relationships between economic growth and environmental quality may change the sign when the country reaches a certain level of economic performance as people can afford more efficient and environment-friendly production resulting in a cleaner environment as suggested by Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC, Shahbaz et al., 2013 ; Stern, 2017 ; Anwar et al., 2022 ). Yet, environmental protection is a global issue, and especially the developed countries are introducing new measures to improve the environment.

3 The factors affecting the preferences for environmental protection. Literature review

The impetus for environmental protection was originally verbalized in the 1970s in the United States in Fisk’s Theory of Responsible Consumption ( Fisk,1974 ), Henion and Kinnear’s Ecological Marketing (1976), and Kardash’s Ecologically Concerned Consumer ( Kardash, 1974 ). Studies initially focused on energy use, pollution connected to the automobile, oil, and chemical industries, as well as consumer reactions to advertising and labeling ( Henion and Kinnear, 1976 ; Kilbourne and Beckmann, 1998 ; Peattie, 2010 ). Subsequently, they turned to examine green purchases of food products and environmentally friendly items.

Research into the preferences for environmental protection has focused on identifying impacting factors to promote environmental protection. These factors have largely reflected the prevailing social and economic paradigms of the time. Early literature concentrated on economic incentives and financial capabilities of households, socio-demographic characteristics ( Laroche, et al., 2001 ; Robinson and Smith, 2002 ; Jenkins, et al., 2003 ), and environmental knowledge ( Peattie, 2010 ) and advised that government policy should primarily provide economic incentives to support pro-environmental behavior ( Bartelings and Sterner, 1999 ; Eriksson, 2004 ; Jackson, 2005 ; Wang et al., 2021 ; Shen and Wang, 2022 ). This approach is still in use today in waste management, where households are incentivized to sort communal waste by making the disposal of sorted waste free of charge. The socio-demographic factors as potential predictors of preferences for environmental protection are often used as control variables in more recent studies ( Walia et al., 2020 ). The studies based on economic data suggested that more affluent households have a greater environmental footprint yet can afford to buy “greener” products ( Cymru, 2002 ; Lenzen and Murray, 2003 ; Huang et al., 2022 ). Therefore, a rise in income may lead to an increase in pro-environmental consumption.

After focusing on economic, demographic, or knowledge factors, the research has shifted its focus to attitudes and values, which were recognized to be often more important in predicting environmental protection than economic or socio-demographic. For example, Schwartz’s value model and altruistic values have been reported to be linked to pro-environmental behavior ( Han et al., 2007 ; Carrus et al., 2008 ; Peattie, 2010 ; Wang L. et al., 2019 ; Wang Y. et al., 2019 ). Surprisingly, not all pro-environmental values lead to greater environmental protection. For example, pro-environmental values may not always lead to an increase in such activities as recycling ( Barr, 2007 ), buying organic food, or avoiding leaving appliances on standby ( Lyndhurst, 2004 ). Research has also indicated that environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, conditional value, and emotional value all positively affect pro-environmental intentions and behaviors ( Nekmahmud et al., 2022 ).

3.1 Government regulations, freedom, and environmental protection

Governmental regulations are frequently called upon to ensure environmental protection ( Sarkodie and Strezov, 2019 ; Güngör et al., 2021 ; Al-Mulali et al., 2022 ). However, restrictive governmental regulations “circumscribes the autonomy (freedom) of the members of society” ( Porket, 2003 , p. 50). The post-soviet countries present a wide variety of attitudes to personal freedoms ranging from more Westernized democratic Baltic countries admitted to European Union to a collection of autocracies without any extensive, market-based liberalization in Central Asia ( Hartwell, 2022 ).

Economic and political freedoms have been shown to affect the environment significantly regarding the preferences for and costs of environmental protection ( Zhang et al., 2019 ; Bruun, 2020 ; Halvorson, 2021 ; Anwar et al., 2022 ). Yet, the preferences for political and economic freedoms are rarely considered for predicting the environmental preferences of the population ( Joshi and Beck, 2018 ). In this paper, we hypothesize that the preferences for individual freedoms are significant predictors of the preferences for environmental protection (H1).

Environment protection requires regulation of personal behavior, which can be monitored via all kinds of surveillance means, including street cameras, monitoring of emails, and collecting and storing personal information. These means can increase the efficiency of environmental regulations but decrease individual freedoms. In this paper, we hypothesize that the preferences for government-managed video surveillance, monitoring of emails, and collecting information about everyone predict preferences for environmental protection (H2).

Personal freedoms are often exchanged for (the illusion of) protection from the government ( Hofstede, et al., 2005 ). We test whether the preference on the amount of government responsibility (government taxing the rich and subsidizing the poor, making the incomes equal, government owning the businesses, government paying unemployment benefits, people obeying their rulers) predicts preferences for environmental protection.

Personal freedom is also reflected in the procedure of election. We hypothesize that the preferred role of the government and the way it is elected are significant predictors of the preferences for environmental protection (H2). We employ the following indicators to account for the election procedure: people choose their leaders in free elections, the importance of democracy, personal freedoms as a sign of democracy, women have the same rights as men, and the army takes over when the government is incompetent (disagreement with).

3.2 The role of religion

The post-soviet region is largely diversified in religious confessions and the role assigned to God. The scale ranges from relatively secular Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), through multi-religious Russia, to essentially 90% religious Islamic (mostly) Central Asia ( Simons and Westerlund, 2016 ). After the fall of the Soviet Union, religious confessions gained more power in defining, interfering and affecting the ideas of personal freedom and the environment ( Froese, 2004 ).

Religion has a strong influence on people’s preferences to protect the environment. Many religious teachings incorporate conservation and stewardship of the environment, providing an ethical and moral incentive to protect the environment ( Djupe and Hunt, 2009 ; Jenkins and Chapple, 2011 ). Religious beliefs can also shape people’s attitudes toward the environment in terms of the value they place on nature, the importance of maintaining a balance between humanity and nature, and the need to be good stewards of the Earth ( Jenkins and Chapple, 2011 ; Hope, and Jones, 2014 ; Bergmann, 2017 ). This can lead to an increased commitment to environmental protection and conservation, as well as greater environmental concern and activism ( Sherkat and Ellison, 2007 ). Thus, in the line of Eom, et al. (2021b) , we suggest that religiosity is a significant predictor for the preferences for environmental protection in post-soviet countries (H3). We employ two indicators for religious beliefs: the subjective importance of God in life and the level of agreement with the religious authorities interpreting the laws.

4 Materials and methods

4.1 the study.

This paper aims to study the impact of preferences for economic (and other) freedoms and the expected role of the government on preferences for environmental protection in the eleven Post Soviet Union countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine). Religiosity is suggested to be the next factor to consider. The following hypotheses are tested:

H1. Preferences for individual freedoms predict preference for environmental protection.

The indicators of the preferences for individual freedoms include the preferred right of the government to:

• Keep people under video surveillance in public areas.

• Monitor all emails and any other information exchanged on the internet.

• Collect information about anyone living in the country without their knowledge.

H2. The preferred role of the government predicts preferences for environmental protection. The Indicators for the role of the government include:

• Governments tax the rich and subsidize the poor.

• Religious authorities interpret the laws.

• People choose their leaders in free elections.

• People receive state aid for unemployment.

• The army takes over when the government is incompetent.

• Civil rights protect people’s liberty against oppression.

• Women have the same rights as men.

• The state makes people’s incomes equal

• People obey their rulers

H3. Religiosity affects the preference for environmental protection.

The indicators for religiosity include.

• Importance of God in life

• Religious authorities should interpret the laws

As economic performance is of immense importance in Post-Soviet countries, we also test similar hypotheses to predict the preferences for economic growth as one of the country’s priorities. This will enable us to contrast the importance and effects of environmental protection to the other social goals.

4.2 The data

We employ a representative dataset collected in the World Value Study and European Value Study in 11 post-Soviet Union countries in 2017–2020 (Joint dataset, EVS/WVS, 2021 ; see also EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 ). The choice of countries was based on data availability. All the Post-Soviet Union countries present in the EVS/WVS dataset were incorporated into the analysis. The target population was defined as persons aged 18 and older who had been residing in the country within private households for the past 6 months before the fieldwork ( EVS, 2020b ; WVS, 2020 ). The sampling relied on a representative single-stage or multi-stage probability sampling of the country’s adult population, 18 years old and older. The sample size was set as an effective sample size: with N minimum of 1,500 for countries over 100 million, 1,200 for countries with a population over 2 million, and 1,000 for countries below 2 million. A resulting total sample embraced 20006 respondents aged 18+ (mean age ± SD: 46,04 ± 17,07, 58% women, 46,8% upper education (Upper level: ISCED 2011 levels 5–8—short cycle tertiary and higher). Most surveys were conducted using face-to-face interviews ( WVS, 2020 ; EVS, 2020b ) The data are available for non-commercial purposes at the web pages of European and World Value Studies ( https://europeanvaluesstudy.eu/methodology-data-documentation/survey-2017/joint-evs-wvs-2017-2021-dataset/ , accessed 11.11.21).

4.3 Indicators

The following section provides the exact wording of the questions employed in the further analysis and the distribution of the respondents.

4.3.1 Preference for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth

4.3.1.1 protecting environment vs. economic growth.

“Here are two statements people sometimes make when discussing the environment and economic growth. Which of them comes closer to your own point of view?

• Protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some loss of jobs.” (53,70% of the respondents),”

• Economic growth and creating jobs should be the top priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent. (46,30% of the respondents)" ( EVS, 2020a ; 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 ).

The distributions of the respondents in studied countries are presented in Figure 1 below (end of the paper) and Supplementary Table SA3 .

FIGURE 1 . Protecting the environment vs. economic growth. The distribution of the respondents. Source: own computations based on the data EVS/WVS ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 ).

4.3.1.2 Economic growth as one of the country’s priorities

• “A high level of economic growth” (57,20% of the respondents)

• “Making sure this country has strong defense forces” (21,40% of the respondents)

• “Seeing that people have more say about how things are done at their jobs and in their communities (14,90 of the respondents)”

• “Trying to make our cities and countryside more beautiful (6,50% of the respondents)", ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“People sometimes talk about what the aims of this country should be for the next ten years. On this card are listed some of the goals that different people would give top priority. Would you please say which one of these you, consider the most important?”

Figure 2 below and Supplementary Table SA4 present the distributions of the respondents in countries.

FIGURE 2 . Aims of the country, first choice. The distribution of the respondents. Source: own computations.

4.3.1.3 Personal freedom versus the role of the government

This study considers the capability of the government to control individual lives via video surveillance, monitoring the information exchanged on the internet, and collecting information about individuals without their knowledge. The corresponding question in the questionnaire was formulated as follows:

• Keep people under video surveillance in public areas

• Monitor all emails and any other information exchanged on the internet

• Collect information about anyone living in [COUNTRY] without their knowledge

1 - Definitely should have the right; 2—Probably should have the right; 3—Probably should not have the right; 4—Definitely should not have the right” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“Do you think that the [COUNTRY] government should or should not have the right to do the following :

We suggest that all three questions are related to preferences for environmental protection. For example, monitoring people in public areas might be used as a tool to localize and personalize the origins of garbage lest on unauthorized places. The monitoring of the emails and collecting information may provide information on intentions to comply with government regulations to protect the environment.

Personal freedom goes hand in hand with personal responsibility. The corresponding questions in the questionnaire were formulated as follows:

• People should take more responsibility; 10- The government should take more responsibility

• Private ownership of business should be increased; 10- Government ownership of business should be increased” ( EVS, 2020a ; 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“On this card you see a number of opposite views on various issues. How would you place your views on this scale?

The distribution of the respondents is presented in Supplementary Table SA5 .

4.3.1.4 Personal freedoms and rights as essential signs of democracy

• People obey their rulers” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“Many things are desirable, but not all of them are essential characteristics of democracy. Please tell me for each of the following things how essential you think it is as a characteristic of democracy. Use this scale where 1 means “not at all an essential characteristic of democracy” and 10 means it definitely is “an essential characteristic of democracy.”

The distributions of the respondents are presented in Supplementary Table SA6 .

4.3.1.5 The level and importance of democracy

“How important is it for you to live in a country that is governed democratically? On this scale where 1 means it is “not at all important” and 10 means “absolutely important,” what position would you choose?” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“And how democratically is this country being governed today? Again using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means that it is “not at all democratic” and 10 means that it is “completely democratic,” what position would you choose?” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

The distributions of respondents are presented in Supplementary Table SA7 .

4.3.1.6 The attitude to competition and work

Environmental restrictions highly affect the competitiveness of the firms and the availability of jobs ( Iraldo, et al., 2011 ; Dechezleprêtre and Sato, 2017 ; Borsatto and Amui, 2019 ). We control for the attitude to competition (good-harmful) and the importance of work and equal pay. The answers to the following questions are used as indicators.

• Competition is good, 10—competition is harmful

• Incomes should be made more equal, 10—We need larger income differences as incentives” ( EVS, 2020a ; 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

• Work. 1—Very important; 2—Rather important; 3—Not very important; 4—Not at all important.” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“On this card, you see a number of opposite views on various issues. How would you place your views on this scale?

“Please say, for each of the following, how important it is in your life.

The distribution of the respondents is presented in Supplementary Table SA8 .

4.3.1.7 Importance of God and socio-demographic characteristics

Following Eom, et al. (2021b) , we study the effect of religiosity on preference for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth. The question was formulated as follows:

• Please use this card to indicate—10 means very important and 1 means not at all important.” ( EVS, 2020a ; EVS, 2021 ; Haerpfer et al., 2021 )

“And how important is God in your life?

The resulting variable presented mean of 7,57 and Std. Deviation of 3,175. A total sample embraced 20006 respondents aged 18+ (mean age ± SD: 46,04 ± 17,07, 58% women, 46,8% upper education, the distribution of the respondents split by countries see Supplementary Table SA2 ).

4.4 The method

First, we conducted an exploratory Principal Component Analysis to study the perceptions of individual freedoms as signs of democracy. Then we rely on ordinal regression analysis to test the hypotheses ( Formula 1 , the numbers like a 1-13 denote thirteen coefficients corresponding to thirteen indicators of preferences for freedom versus government, see the description of the variables beneath the equation)

Environment vs. Growth i

• two indicators of preferences for environment vs. economic growth and economic growth as a country priority subsequently.

Freedom versus government

• Government should have the right to monitor people via internet, in public areas and collect information without their knowledge.

• Government should tax the rich and subsidize the poor.

• People have the freedom of election.

• People have the right to state aid for unemployment.

• In case of an incompetent government, the army takes over

• Civil rights protect people’s liberty

• Gender equality of rights and freedoms

• More income equality

• People need to obey their rulers

• People should take more responsibility, not the government

• Private or government business ownership is preferable

• Democracy is important

• The country is democratic

Competition and work

• Competition is good/harmful

• Incomes should be more/less equal

• Importance of work

Religiosity

• The importance of God in life

• country dummies for Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine

Socio-demographic characteristics

• Age

• Gender

• Education

The two models corresponding to two dependent variables were estimated via ordinal logit regression ( Formula 1 ). The Pearson correlations of independent variables are presented in Supplementary Table SA1 . None of the correlations exceeded 0,5; thus, multicollinearity is unlikely.

5.1 Individual freedoms as characteristics of democracy. The results of the Principal Component Analysis

Before discussing the results of the Principal Component Analysis, we present the setting of the analysis and the indicators measuring the suitability of the data for this type of the analysis. The Principal Component Analysis was set as follows: rotation Method - Varimax with Kaiser normalization; the number of components - according to Eigenvalue (>1). Rotation converged in 3 iterations. The Bartlett test of sphericity with a Chi-Square value 106609,60 ( p < 0,001) and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of sampling adequacy with a value equal to 0,790 (>0,6) suggests that the data are suitable to identify factor dimensions. The indicators of applicability of the Principal component analysis, as presented above, suggest that the method is suitable for the data.

The results of the Principal Component Analysis are presented in Tables 2 , 3 . Four extracted components altogether were able to explain 51,29% of the variance.

TABLE 2 . Principal component analysis for individual freedoms as signs of democracy. Total variance explained.

TABLE 3 . Principal component analysis for individual freedoms as signs of democracy. Rotated Component Matrix.

As the results suggest, the indicators for freedom (as a sign of democracy) divided themselves into two categories described by two latent variables ( Table 3 ). The first views democracy as a system representing civil rights and freedoms, implying free elections, gender equality, liberty, and the right to receive state aid if unemployed. The other group of variables describes democracy in terms of the increased role of the state, army, and religion, implying the state provides more income equality. If the state is incompetent, the army takes over, religious authorities interpret the laws, and the population is obedient to their rulers. The first latent variable constitutes the freedom apex, while the second constitutes the opposite.

Personal freedoms as predictors of preference for environmental protection and economic growth. The results of logistic regression analyses.

The results of logistic regression analyses ( Formula 1 ) are presented in Table 4 .

TABLE 4 . Predicting environmental protection vs. economic growth, economic growth vs. other goals. The results of ordinal regressions.

The summary of the statistically significant results from Table 4 is presented in Table 5 . The positive associations are denoted by "+", the negative ones, by “-”.

TABLE 5 . Summary of results of ordinal regressions ( Formula 1 ; Table 5). Statistically significant associations.

6 Discussion

6.1 hypotheses 1 and 2: preferences for individual freedoms and the role of the government predict preferences for environmental protection..

This paper studied the association between the preferences for individual freedom, the role of the government, and preferences for environmental protection. The results of the analysis above indicate that associations between environmental protection, economic growth, and individual freedoms are far from uniform. On one side, personal freedoms (civil rights, the importance of democracy, gender equality, pay inequality if it occurs, no role of the army in politics) predicted higher preferences for environment protection at the expense of economic growth and higher growth itself as opposed to other societal goals. This indicates personal freedoms are positively related to environmental protection. On the other side, governmental video surveillance in public areas showed to be positively related to both environmental protection and economic growth. However, the right of the government to internet monitoring decreased preferences for economic growth but not for environmental protection.

The ambivalence above poses questions about the right type of freedom and control affecting environmental and economic outcomes. As individual freedoms start and end with the freedoms of others, we can hypothesize that the preference for video surveillance in public places corresponds to the need to monitor the activities of fellow citizens, traffic, and other features of the outer environment. In the case of environmental protection, it is understandable as it allows more efficient environment monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations. As concerned with economic growth (the country’s priority), video surveillance ensures more safety ( Sharma et al., 2022 ), more efficient crime abatement ( Garibotto, 2010 ), and rule enforcement ( Yesil, 2006 ).

Though video surveillance violates some human rights for privacy ( Granholm, 1986 ), it is considered one of the most effective means for an emergency response to traffic or the environment ( Noguera et al., 2011 ; Chung, 2012 ; Chen, et al., 2014 ). Video surveillance is also one of the most effective ways for real-time environment control ( Stipanicev, et al., 2007 ) and an essential feature of smart cities ( Korchani and Sethom, K. 2021 ).

Environmental regulations substantially disturb competition ( Iraldo et al., 2011 ; Dechezleprêtre and Sato, 2017 ; Borsatto and Amui, 2019 ), though there are considerable efforts to integrate green policy into competition legislation ( Kingston, 2010 ). However, our results report that the importance of competition significantly predicted a preference for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth and the preference for economic growth as a priority over other goals. This ambivalent result is still to be explained. Besides competition, the importance of work in life predicted a preference for economic growth.

6.2 Hypothesis 3: Religiosity predicts the preference for environmental protection.

The importance of God showed to positively predict environmental protection and negatively predict economic growth. The matter of environment is of immense importance in religious beliefs. In Islam, the environment bears much importance, and the rights and responsibilities of a man with respect to the environment are clearly stated ( Omer, 2012 ). In Christianity, the belief in a controlling god is significantly associated with environmental guilt ( Eom, et al., 2021a ) and environmental justice forms one of the principles of eco-theology ( Hrynkow, 2017 ). Surrendering Environmental Identities is viewed as one of the ways of becoming one with God ( Roshani and Rathnasiri, 2018 ). The importance of God appears to be one of the significant predictors of environmental preferences, which should not be forgotten. On the other hand, the intrusion of religious authorities into secular processes in interpreting the laws showed to predict lower preferences for economic growth.

6.2.1 The country differences

Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Lithuania, and Ukraine report higher importance of economic growth as the most important aim of the country, while Estonia presented lower. Oppositely, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine showed more preference for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth compared to Russia, while Armenia, Belarus, Lithuania, and Tajikistan reported more preference for economic growth at the expense of environmental protection compared to Russia (controlling for all the variables presented in table Results).

6.2.2 Age, gender, education

Women prefer more environmental protection at the expense of economic growth compared to men. People with lower education place less importance on economic growth than higher-educated people.

7 Conclusion

The association between economic development and environmental degradation generally follows the U shape titled Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC, Shahbaz et al., 2013 ; Stern, 2017 ; Anwar et al., 2022 ). Lower-income countries generally reside on the beginning part of the curve, meaning that economic development damages the environment, while more well-to-do countries present a more favorable increasing relationship between economic development and the state of the environment. The Post Soviet countries generally belong to the first part of the curve, meaning that economic development, if not corrected by environmental regulations, increases environmental pollution levels and generally damages the environment ( Yang et al., 2017 ; Hasanov et al., 2019 ; Hasanov et al., 2023 ). Especially in these countries, the environment protection measures go against economic performance, and the tradeoff between more economic growth and environmental protection is more pronounced.

In this paper, we run Principal Component Analysis to study the structure of preferences for personal freedom and conducted logistic regression analyses to study the effects of preferences for individual freedoms on preferences for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth and economic growth as one of the country’s priorities. We employed a representative sample from eleven Post Soviet Union countries (N = 20006, age 18+, M ± SD: 46,04 ± 17,07; 58% women, 46,8% upper education).The results suggest that personal freedoms (civil rights, importance of democracy, gender equality, income inequality, no role of army in politics) predicted preferences for environmental protection at the expense of economic growth and growth as opposed to other societal goals. However, the right of the government to surveillance in public areas, though diminishing personal freedoms in terms of anonymity, proved to be positively related to both environmental protection and economic growth as one of the country’s priorities. Though environmental regulations generally decrease the firm competitiveness, the preferences for competition proved to predict higher preferences for environmental regulations.

Last but not least, religious beliefs proved to predict higher preferences for environmental protection but lower preferences for economic growth. In fact, in many religions, God is considered a part of the environment, and the rights and responsibilities of man to the environment are the central part of religious beliefs ( Omer, 2012 ; Hrynkow, 2017 ; Eom, et al., 2021a ). The role of religion in shaping individual preferences needs more research.

Overall, the results supported the view that even though environmental regulations generally reduce individual freedoms and obstruct economic performance in many cases, they are in line with the preferences for individual freedoms in many aspects. This may indicate the increasing understanding of a cleaner environment as an individual right that widens the spectrum of preferred individual freedoms. This result is rather optimistic, especially in the set of the Post Soviet Union countries, many of which are still struggling economically and yet consider the environment as a part of (or at least in line with) their individual freedoms.

These results suggest several implications. First, though environmental regulations may harm particular firms, society views the benefits it provides as a part of their freedoms. If communicated correctly, the measures are likely to gain social support. Second, the support for environmental protection measures should be studied jointly with other preferences for individual freedoms as they seem to form a specific system. Third, the broad society seems to be aware of environmental impacts and, to at larger extent, recognizes the role of the environment even at the expense of economic growth. Thus the government may communicate the need for environmental protection as a part of individual freedoms for a clean environment.

Data availability statement

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp .

Ethics statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics committee Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, IC and LS; methodology, IC; data curation, AO; writing—original draft preparation, AO and DM; writing—review and editing, AO, LS, IC, DM, and SK; supervision, LS; project administration, LS; funding acquisition, LS. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

The paper supported by the internal research Project No. 2021B0002: The post-Soviet Region in the Context of International Trade Activities: Opportunities and Threats Arising from Mutual Cooperation, solved at the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1129236/full#supplementary-material

Al-Mulali, U., Gholipour, H. F., and Solarin, S. A. (2022). Investigating the environmental kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis: Does government effectiveness matter? Evidence from 170 countries. Environ. Dev. Sustain. 24 (11), 12740–12755.

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Ambec, S., and Lanoie, P. (2008). Does it pay to be green? A systematic overview . The Academy of Management Perspectives , 45–62.

Google Scholar

Anwar, M. A., Zhang, Q., Asmi, F., Hussain, N., Plantinga, A., Zafar, M. W., et al. (2022). Global perspectives on environmental kuznets curve: A bibliometric review. Gondwana Res. 103, 135–145. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2021.11.010

Barbera, A. J., and McConnell, V. D. (1990). The impact of environmental regulations on industry productivity: Direct and indirect effects. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 18 (1), 50–65. doi:10.1016/0095-0696(90)90051-y

Barr, S. (2007). Factors influencing environmental attitudes and behaviors: A UK case study of household waste management. Environ. Behav. 39 (4), 435–473. doi:10.1177/0013916505283421

Bartelings, H., and Sterner, T. (1999). Household waste management in a Swedish municipality: Determinants of waste disposal, recycling and composting. Environ. Resour. Econ. 13, 473–491. doi:10.1023/a:1008214417099

Becker, R. A. (2005). Air pollution abatement costs under the clean air act: Evidence from the PACE survey. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 50 (1), 144–169. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2004.09.001

Bergmann, S. (2017). Religion, space, and the environment . Routledge .

Borsatto, J. M. L. S., and Amui, L. B. L. (2019). Green innovation: Unfolding the relation with environmental regulations and competitiveness. Resour. Conservation Recycl. 149, 445–454. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.06.005

Boyle, A. (2007). Human rights or environmental rights? A reassessment . Fordham Environmental Law Review , 471–511.

Brännlund, R., and Lundgren, T. (2009). Environmental policy without costs? A review of the porter hypothesis. Int. Rev. Environ. Resour. Econ. 3 (2), 75–117. doi:10.1561/101.00000020

Bruun, O. (2020). Environmental protection in the hands of the state: Authoritarian environmentalism and popular perceptions in vietnam. J. Environ. Dev. 29 (2), 171–195. doi:10.1177/1070496520905625

Carrus, G., Passafaro, P., and Bonnes, M. (2008). Emotions, habits and rational choices in ecological behaviours: The case of recycling and use of public transportation. J. Environ. Psychol. 28 (1), 51–62. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.09.003

Chen, X., Ruan, Y., Yu, J., and Chen, Q. (2014). Short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase catalyzing the final step of noscapine biosynthesis is localized to laticifers in opium poppy. Sensors Transducers 166 (3), 173–184. doi:10.1111/tpj.12379

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Cheng, Y., Sinha, A., Ghosh, V., Sengupta, T., and Luo, H. (2021). Carbon tax and energy innovation at crossroads of carbon neutrality: Designing a sustainable decarbonization policy. J. Environ. Manag. 294, 112957. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112957

Chung, W. H. (2012). A smartphone watch for mobile surveillance service. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 16 (6), 687–696. doi:10.1007/s00779-011-0435-8

Cordero, R. R., Roth, P., and Da Silva, L. (2005). Economic growth or environmental protection?: The false dilemma of the Latin-American countries. Environ. Sci. Policy 8 (4), 392–398. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2005.04.005

Cymru, W. W. F. (2002). The footprint of wales . Cardiff, UK: A Report to the Welsh Assembly Government WWF Cymru .

Dean, T. J., Brown, R. L., and Stango, V. (2000). Environmental regulation as a barrier to the formation of small manufacturing establishments: A longitudinal examination. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 40 (1), 56–75. doi:10.1006/jeem.1999.1105

Dechezleprêtre, A., Nachtigall, D., and Venmans, F. (2022). The joint impact of the European Union emissions trading system on carbon emissions and economic performance. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 118, 102758. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102758

Dechezleprêtre, A., and Sato, M. (2017). The impacts of environmental regulations on competitiveness. Review of environmental economics and policy .

Demertzidis, N., Tsalis, T. A., Loupa, G., and Nikolaou, I. E. (2015). A benchmarking framework to evaluate business climate change risks: A practical tool suitable for investors decision-making process. Clim. Risk Manag. 10, 95–105. doi:10.1016/j.crm.2015.09.002

Djupe, P. A., and Hunt, P. K. (2009). Beyond the Lynn White thesis: Congregational effects on environmental concern. J. Sci. Study Relig. 48 (4), 670–686. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01472.x

Eom, K., Saad, C. S., and Kim, H. S. (2021a). Religiosity moderates the link between environmental beliefs and pro-environmental support: The role of belief in a controlling god. Personality Soc. Psychol. Bull. 47 (6), 891–905. doi:10.1177/0146167220948712

Eom, K., Tok, T. Q. H., Saad, C. S., and Kim, H. S. (2021b). Religion, environmental guilt, and pro-environmental support: The opposing pathways of stewardship belief and belief in a controlling god. J. Environ. Psychol. 78, 101717. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101717

Eren, B. M., Taspinar, N., and Gokmenoglu, K. K. (2019). The impact of financial development and economic growth on renewable energy consumption: Empirical analysis of India. Sci. Total Environ. 663, 189–197. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.323

Eriksson, C. (2004). Can green consumerism replace environmental regulation?—A differentiated-products example. Resour. energy Econ. 26 (3), 281–293. doi:10.1016/j.reseneeco.2003.10.001

C. Haerpfer, R. Inglehart, A. Moreno, C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. Diez-Medranoet al. et al. (2021). World values survey: Round seven–country-pooled datafile (Madrid, Spain & Vienna, Austria: JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat ). doi:10.14281/18241.13

EVS (2020a). European values study 2017: Integrated dataset (EVS 2017). GESIS data archive . Cologne. ZA7500 Data file Version 4.0.0. doi:10.4232/1.13560

EVS (2021). European values study 2017: Ukraine (EVS 2017) . GESIS Data Archive . Cologne. ZA7539 Data file Version 1.0.0. doi:10.4232/1.13714

EVS (2020b). European values study (EVS) 2017: Methodological guidelines. (GESIS papers, 2020/13) . Köln. (url: https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/70110) (accessed October 21, 2021).

EVS/WVS (2021). European values study and World values survey: Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2021 dataset (joint EVS/WVS) . Cologne: GESIS Data Archive . ZA7505. Dataset Version 2.0.0. doi:10.4232/1.13737

Fan, W., and Hao, Y. (2020). An empirical research on the relationship amongst renewable energy consumption, economic growth and foreign direct investment in China. Renew. energy 146, 598–609. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2019.06.170

Filbeck, G., and Gorman, R. F. (2004). The relationship between the environmental and financial performance of public utilities. Environ. Resour. Econ. 29 (2), 137–157. doi:10.1023/b:eare.0000044602.86367.ff

Fisk, G. (1974). Marketing and the ecological crisis . New York: Harper & Row .

Froese, P. (2004). After atheism: An analysis of religious monopolies in the post-communist world. Sociol. Relig. 65 (1), 57–75. doi:10.2307/3712507

Garibotto, G. (2010). “Multi-camera human re-identification for video security of museums,” in Proceedings of the EVA 2010 conference on electronic imaging & the visual arts ( Firenze, Italy , 21–23.

Granholm, J. M. (1986). Video surveillance on public streets: The constitutionality of invisible citizen searches. U. Det. L. Rev. 64, 687.

Gray, W. B., and Shadbegian, R. J. (2003). Plant vintage, technology, and environmental regulation. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 46 (3), 384–402. doi:10.1016/s0095-0696(03)00031-7

Güngör, H., Abu-Goodman, M., Olanipekun, I. O., and Usman, O. (2021). Testing the environmental kuznets curve with structural breaks: The role of globalization, energy use, and regulatory quality in south Africa. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 28 (16), 20772–20783. doi:10.1007/s11356-020-11843-4

Halvorson, C. (2021). Valuing clean air: The EPA and the economics of environmental protection . Oxford University Press .

Han, S., Lerner, J. S., and Keltner, D. (2007). Feelings and consumer decision making: The appraisal-tendency framework. J. consumer Psychol. 17 (3), 158–168. doi:10.1016/s1057-7408(07)70023-2

Hannis, M. (2015). Freedom and environment: Autonomy, human flourishing and the political philosophy of sustainability . Routledge .

Hartwell, C. A. (2022). Part of the problem? The eurasian economic union and environmental challenges in the former soviet union. Problems Post-Communism 69 (4-5), 317–329. doi:10.1080/10758216.2021.1960173

Hartwick, J. M. (1978). Substitution among exhaustible resources and intergenerational equity. Rev. Econ. Stud. 45 (2), 347–354.

Hasanov, F. J., Khan, Z., Hussain, M., and Tufail, M. (2021). Theoretical framework for the carbon emissions effects of technological progress and renewable energy consumption. Sustain. Dev. 29 (5), 810–822. doi:10.1002/sd.2175

Hasanov, F. J., Mikayilov, J. I., Mukhtarov, S., and Suleymanov, E. (2019). Does CO 2 emissions–economic growth relationship reveal EKC in developing countries? Evidence from Kazakhstan. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 26, 30229–30241. doi:10.1007/s11356-019-06166-y

Hasanov, F. J., Mukhtarov, S., and Suleymanov, E. (2023). The role of renewable energy and total factor productivity in reducing CO2 emissions in Azerbaijan. Fresh insights from a new theoretical framework coupled with Autometrics. Energy Strategy Rev. 47, 101079. doi:10.1016/j.esr.2023.101079

Hashmi, R., and Alam, K. (2019). Dynamic relationship among environmental regulation, innovation, CO2 emissions, population, and economic growth in oecd countries: A panel investigation. J. Clean. Prod. 231, 1100–1109. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.325

Henion, K. E., and Kinnear, T. C. (1976). Ecological marketing . Chicago, IL: Am. Mark. Assoc .

Heyes, A. (2009). Is environmental regulation bad for competition? A survey. J. Regul. Econ. 36 (1), 1–28. doi:10.1007/s11149-009-9099-y

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., and Minkov, M. (2005). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind , 2. New York: McGraw-Hill .

Hope, A. L., and Jones, C. R. (2014). The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study. Technol. Soc. 38, 48–59. doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2014.02.003

Hrynkow, C. W. (2017). Greening god? Christian ecotheology, environmental justice, and socio-ecological flourishing. Environ. Justice 10 (3), 81–87. doi:10.1089/env.2017.0009

Huang, H., Long, R., Chen, H., Li, Q., Wu, M., and Gan, X. (2022). Knowledge domain and research progress in green consumption: A phase upgrade study. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 29 (26), 38797–38824. doi:10.1007/s11356-022-19200-3

Iraldo, F., Testa, F., Melis, M., and Frey, M. (2011). A literature review on the links between environmental regulation and competitiveness. Environ. Policy Gov. 21 (3), 210–222. doi:10.1002/eet.568

Jackson, T. (2005). Motivating sustainable consumption. Sustain. Dev. Res. Netw. 29 (1), 30–40.

Jenkins, R. R., Martinez, S. A., Palmer, K., and Podolsky, M. J. (2003). The determinants of household recycling: A material-specific analysis of recycling program features and unit pricing. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 45 (2), 294–318. doi:10.1016/s0095-0696(02)00054-2

Jenkins, W., and Chapple, C. K. (2011). Religion and environment. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 36, 441–463. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-042610-103728

Joshi, P., and Beck, K. (2018). Democracy and carbon dioxide emissions: Assessing the interactions of political and economic freedom and the environmental kuznets curve. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 39, 46–54. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2017.10.020

Kardash, W. J. (1974). Corporate responsibility and the quality of life: Developing the ecologically concerned consumer. Ecological marketing . Chicago, IL: American Marketing Association , 5–10.

Kilbourne, W. E., and Beckmann, S. C. (1998). Review and critical assessment of research on marketing and the environment. J. Mark. Manag. 14 (6), 513–532. doi:10.1362/026725798784867716

Kingston, S. (2010). Integrating environmental protection and EU competition law: Why competition isn't special. Eur. Law J. 16 (6), 780–805. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0386.2010.00533.x

Klöpfer, M. (1996). Freedom and environmental protection as a constitutional problem. Interdiscip. Sci. Rev. 21 (4), 354–361. doi:10.1179/isr.1996.21.4.354

Korchani, B., and Sethom, K. (2021). “Real-time littering detection for smart city using deep learning algorithm,” in 2020 international conference on communications, signal processing, and their applications (ICCSPA) ( IEEE ), 1–5.

Laroche, M., Bergeron, J., and Barbaro-Forleo, G. (2001). Targeting consumers who are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. J. consumer Mark. 18, 503–520. doi:10.1108/eum0000000006155

Lenzen, M., and Murray, S. A. (2003). The ecological footprint–issues and trends. ISA Res. Pap. 1 (3).

Lyndhurst, B. (2004). Bad habits and hard choices: In search of sustainable lifestyles . London, Brook .

Masron, T. A., and Subramaniam, Y. (2019). Does poverty cause environmental degradation? Evidence from developing countries. J. poverty 23 (1), 44–64. doi:10.1080/10875549.2018.1500969

Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., and Behrens, W. (1972). Limits to growth . New York: Universe Books .

Moseley, W. G. (2001). African evidence on the relation of poverty, time preference and the environment. Ecol. Econ. 38 (3), 317–326. doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(01)00184-7

Nekmahmud, M., Ramkissoon, H., and Fekete-Farkas, M. (2022). Green purchase and sustainable consumption: A comparative study between European and non-European tourists. Tour. Manag. Perspect. 43, 100980. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2022.100980

Nikolaou, I. E., Jones, N., and Stefanakis, A. (2021). Circular economy and sustainability: The past, the present and the future directions. Circular Econ. Sustain. 1 (1), 1–20. doi:10.1007/s43615-021-00030-3

Nikolaou, I. E., Kourouklaris, G., and Tsalis, T. A. (2014). A framework to assist the financial community in incorporating water risks into their investment decisions. J. Sustain. Finance Invest. 4 (2), 93–109. doi:10.1080/20430795.2013.823853

Noguera, J. M., Segura, R. J., Ogáyar, C. J., and Joan-Arinyo, R. (2011). Navigating large terrains using commodity mobile devices. Comput. geosciences 37 (9), 1218–1233. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2010.08.007

Omer, S. (2012). The concepts of God, man, and the environment in Islam: Implications for Islamic architecture. J. Islamic Archit. 2 (1). doi:10.18860/jia.v2i1.1778

Osofsky, H. M. (2005). Learning from environmental justice: A new model for international environmental rights. Stan. Envtl. LJ 24, 71.

Panayotou, T. (2016). Economic growth and the environment. Environ. Anthropol. 24, 140–148.

Peattie, K. (2010). Green consumption: Behavior and norms. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 35, 195–228. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-032609-094328

Porket, J. L. (2003). The pros and cons of government regulation. Econ. Aff. 23 (4), 48–54. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0270.2003.00444.x

Porter, M. E., and Van der Linde, C. (2000). 2. Green and competitive: Ending the. The dynamics of the eco-efficient economy: Environmental regulation and competitive advantage , 33.

Porter, M. E., and Van der Linde, C. (1995). Toward a new conception of the environment-competitiveness relationship. J. Econ. Perspect. 9 (4), 97–118. doi:10.1257/jep.9.4.97

Ramanathan, R., Black, A., Nath, P., and Muyldermans, L. (2010). Impact of environmental regulations on innovation and performance in the UK industrial sector. Manag. Decis. 48, 1493–1513. doi:10.1108/00251741011090298

Rassier, D. G., and Earnhart, D. (2010). The effect of clean water regulation on profitability: Testing the Porter hypothesis. Land Econ. 86 (2), 329–344. doi:10.3368/le.86.2.329

Rennings, K., and Rammer, C. (2011). The impact of regulation-driven environmental innovation on innovation success and firm performance. Industry Innovation 18 (03), 255–283. doi:10.1080/13662716.2011.561027

Robinson, R., and Smith, C. (2002). Psychosocial and demographic variables associated with consumer intention to purchase sustainably produced foods as defined by the Midwest Food Alliance. J. Nutr. Educ. Behav. 34 (6), 316–325. doi:10.1016/s1499-4046(06)60114-0

Roshani, P. C., and Rathnasiri, H. C. (2018). Religiosity and environmentally concerned consumer behaviour:‘becoming one with God (nature)' through surrendering environmental identities. Int. J. Consumer Stud. 42 (6), 627–638. doi:10.1111/ijcs.12469

Sarkodie, S. A., and Strezov, V. (2019). A review on environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis using bibliometric and meta-analysis. Sci. total Environ. 649, 128–145. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.276

Sarkodie, S. A., Strezov, V., Weldekidan, H., Asamoah, E. F., Owusu, P. A., and Doyi, I. N. Y. (2019). Environmental sustainability assessment using dynamic autoregressive-distributed lag simulations—Nexus between greenhouse gas emissions, biomass energy, food and economic growth. Sci. total Environ. 668, 318–332. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.432

Shahbaz, M., Ozturk, I., Afza, T., and Ali, A. (2013). Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve in a global economy. Renew. Sustain. energy Rev. 25, 494–502. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2013.05.021

Sharma, N., Saqib, M., Scully-Power, P., and Blumenstein, M. (2022). “SharkSpotter: Shark detection with drones for human safety and environmental protection,” in Humanity driven AI (Cham: Springer ), 223–237.

Shelton, D. (2012). “Resolving conflicts between human rights and environmental protection: Is there a hierarchy?,” in Hierarchy in international law: The place of human rights , 181–194.

Shen, M., and Wang, J. (2022). The impact of pro-environmental awareness components on green consumption behavior: The moderation effect of consumer perceived cost, policy incentives, and face culture. Front. Psychol. 13, 580823. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.580823

Sherkat, D. E., and Ellison, C. G. (2007). Structuring the religion-environment connection: Identifying religious influences on environmental concern and activism. J. Sci. study Relig. 46 (1), 71–85. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2007.00341.x

Simons, G., and Westerlund, D. (2016). Religion, politics and nation-building in post-communist countries . Routledge .

Sinha, A., Sengupta, T., and Alvarado, R. (2020). Interplay between technological innovation and environmental quality: Formulating the SDG policies for next 11 economies. J. Clean. Prod. 242, 118549. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118549

Smith, M., and Crotty, J. (2008). Environmental regulation and innovation driving ecological design in the UK automotive industry. Bus. strategy Environ. 17 (6), 341–349. doi:10.1002/bse.550

Solow, R. M. (1974). Intergenerational equity and exhaustible resources' review of economic studies, symposium on the economics of exhaustible resources . Edinburgh: Longman .

Stern, D. I. (2017). The environmental Kuznets curve after 25 years. J. Bioeconomics 19 (1), 7–28. doi:10.1007/s10818-017-9243-1

Stiglitz, J. E. (1974). Growth with exhaustible natural resources: Efficient and optimal growth paths' review of economic studies, symposium on the economics of exhaustible resources . Edinburgh: Longman .

Stipanicev, D., Bodrozic, L., and Stula, M. (2007). “Environmental intelligence based on advanced sensor networks,” in 2007 14th international workshop on systems, signals and image processing and 6th EURASIP conference focused on speech and image processing, multimedia communications and services ( IEEE ), 209–212.

Trevlopoulos, N. S., Tsalis, T. A., Evangelinos, K. I., Tsagarakis, K. P., Vatalis, K. I., and Nikolaou, I. E. (2021). The influence of environmental regulations on business innovation, intellectual capital, environmental and economic performance. Environ. Syst. Decis. 41 (1), 163–178. doi:10.1007/s10669-021-09802-6

United Nations Brundtland Commission (1987). Report of the World commission on environment and development: Our common future . http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf (Accessed 5 3, 2023).

Walia, S. B., Kumar, H., and Negi, N. (2020). Impact of socio-demographics on consumers' attitude and purchase intention towards 'eco-friendly'products. Int. J. Technol. Manag. Sustain. Dev. 19 (3), 361–371. doi:10.1386/tmsd_00031_1

Wang, J., Shen, M., and Chu, M. (2021). Why is green consumption easier said than done? Exploring the green consumption attitude-intention gap in China with behavioral reasoning theory. Clean. Responsible Consum. 2, 100015. doi:10.1016/j.clrc.2021.100015

Wang, L., Zhang, G., Shi, P., Lu, X., and Song, F. (2019a). Influence of awe on green consumption: The mediating effect of psychological ownership. Front. Psychol. 10, 2484. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02484

Wang, Y., Li, Y., Zhang, J., and Su, X. (2019b). How impacting factors affect Chinese green purchasing behavior based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. J. Clean. Prod. 240, 118199. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118199

WVS (2020). World Values Survey, Fieldwork and Sampling. Available at: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=FieldworkSampling&CMSID=FieldworkSampling (Accessed November 11, 2021).

Yang, X., Lou, F., Sun, M., Wang, R., and Wang, Y. (2017). Study of the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and the economic growth of Russia based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Appl. Energy 193, 162–173. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.02.034

Yesil, B. (2006). Watching ourselves: Video surveillance, urban space and self-responsibilization. Cult. Stud. 20 (4-5), 400–416. doi:10.1080/09502380600708770

Zhang, Q., Yu, Z., and Kong, D. (2019). The real effect of legal institutions: Environmental courts and firm environmental protection expenditure. J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 98, 102254. doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102254

Keywords: environment protection, economic growth, preferences, survey, environmental kuznets curve, post-soviet countries

Citation: Čábelková I, Smutka L, Mareš D, Ortikov A and Kontsevaya S (2023) Environmental protection or economic growth? The effects of preferences for individual freedoms. Front. Environ. Sci. 11:1129236. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2023.1129236

Received: 21 December 2022; Accepted: 09 May 2023; Published: 22 May 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Čábelková, Smutka, Mareš, Ortikov and Kontsevaya. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Inna Čábelková, [email protected]

Essay On Economic Growth and Environmental Quality

Cite this chapter.

• Ralph C. d’Arge 1  

124 Accesses

The major premise of this essay is that production-consumption and waste emis-sions tend to be joint products of the human species. Given this premise, a parable of an astronaut irretrievably lost in space is discussed in order to deduce several propositions on the astronaut’s optimal rate of consumption. A Harrod type of model is also analyzed with regard to the rate of consumption over time where the model includes a simplified depiction of the interaction between the economy and natural environment. Empirical estimates of the impact of effluent charges on comparative international advantage of selected countries are also presented. The major conclusion is that national and international economic policies and national environmental policies are not separable.

A portion of the research reported on here was financially supported by Resources For The Future, Inc., Washington, D.C. with no responsibility for the inferences or results contained herein.

I wish to acknowledge the comments and criticisms of the following individuals without committing them to agreement with any part of this essay: K. C. Kogiku, T. Crocker, K. Oddson, E. Brook, O. Bubik, T. Clark, and H. Lawton.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Unable to display preview.  Download preview PDF.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of California, Riverside, California, USA

Ralph C. d’Arge

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Editor information

Copyright information.

© 1971 The Swedish Journal of Economics

About this chapter

d’Arge, R.C. (1971). Essay On Economic Growth and Environmental Quality. In: Bohm, P., Kneese, A.V. (eds) The Economics of Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01379-1_2

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01379-1_2

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, London

Print ISBN : 978-0-333-13276-0

Online ISBN : 978-1-349-01379-1

eBook Packages : Palgrave Business & Management Collection Business and Management (R0)

Most Popular

Chatgpt and similar ai is not going to kill you, but ignoring it might.

12 days ago

Writing a Personal Essay From the Start

Schools bet on performance-based salaries for teachers. did it pay off.

11 days ago

Overcoming Challenges in Analytical Essay Writing

10 days ago

How Should I Format My College Essay Properly

Economic growth and environmental damage essay sample, example.

Though nowadays it is more often claimed that humanity can develop without causing damage to nature, there still are strong opposing arguments to this hypothesis. Development assumes economic growth, and economic growth is impossible without industry, which needs energy resources. Currently, the range of goods required by common people has expanded significantly compared to the times before modern industrial technology was employed on a mass scale. People feel the need, not only for primary essentials, such as a slice of bread and a roof over their heads, but also for various facilities and luxuries. Providing humanity with these objects involves the exploitation of natural resources. In turn, the conventional sources of energy we use today cause pollution, so economic growth is almost inevitably associated with environmental damage.

One of the aspects of economic growth that affects the environment most of all is that in order to produce more goods and products at a faster rate, the construction of large industrial plants is required. These enterprises generate mass amounts of pollution in the form of liquid waste and gaseous fumes. Liquid waste is frequently dumped in fresh water bodies, while gaseous fumes are released into the atmosphere. Liquid waste leads to the pollution of water and the damaging of aquatic ecosystems (Jion 365). Gaseous fumes pollute the atmosphere, which may cause negative, long-term health effects to nearby populations of animals or people. They also lead to the degradation of the ozone layer, which is one of the main reasons for the acceleration of global warming.

The conventional energy sources that are commonly used nowadays are considered to be the greatest polluters of the environment, and intensive rates of industrial manufacturing lead to constantly increasing energy consumption. One might say the solution lies in the usage of non-conventional sources of energy , such as tidal, geothermal, or wind energy. They are preferred due to their environmentally-friendly means of energy generation, but at the same time, they possess several critical drawbacks. The high installation cost is one of them. Besides, they are yet less effective than conventional ones, and need the accompanying political will to initiate. Transiting from one energy source to another also requires time, during which people have to make some sacrifices to support these undertakings. In a democratic country, making people accept this would pose a challenge (Robert 209).

Simultaneously, even if implemented, non-conventional sources of energy still do not resolve the problem of inflicting damage to the environment. In order to produce economically viable energy—utilizing tidal and geothermal sources—a sometimes significant distortion of the natural site is often inevitable (Robert 201). This is expensive and has substantial harmful effects on the environment. The application of wind energy would necessitate blocking the airflows’ natural velocity, which is the reason for their decrease in strength after crossing the windmill. Consequently, the pressure balance that is brought about by this current will be affected, and it is important to remember that the environment and weather conditions are directly affected by atmospheric pressure.

As one can see, economic growth is connected to environmental damage, and at the current level of development, humanity can hardly avoid harming nature. This is caused by a number of factors, such as the inaccessibility and costliness of alternative sources of energy. But the most significant reason is that constant economic growth leads to the increase in the rate of industrial production. With the expansion of industry, more conventional resources are needed, and since their usage causes severe pollution, it can be concluded that economic growth is inseparable from the damage inflicted on the environment.

Jion, Mary. Ripping the Word Apart by Our Hands . New York: Lion’s Covet Press, 2008. Print.

Robert, Gerald. The Claws of Industry . Seattle: Rain City Press, 2011. Print.

Follow us on Reddit for more insights and updates.

Comments (0)

Welcome to A*Help comments!

We’re all about debate and discussion at A*Help.

We value the diverse opinions of users, so you may find points of view that you don’t agree with. And that’s cool. However, there are certain things we’re not OK with: attempts to manipulate our data in any way, for example, or the posting of discriminative, offensive, hateful, or disparaging material.

Comments are closed.

More from Best Persuasive Essay Examples

May 28 2023

How does outdoor exercises impact our health and well-being? Essay Sample, Example

Should Screen Time Be Limited? Essay Sample, Example

Why Video Games are Good for the Brain. Essay Sample, Example

Remember Me

What is your profession ? Student Teacher Writer Other

Forgotten Password?

Username or Email

Essay on Environment and Economic Growth

Essay on Environment and Economic Growth!

As E.O Wilson has put it:

Environmentalism sees humanity as a biological species tightly dependent on the natural world. Many of earth s vital resources are about to be exhausted, if atmospheric chemistry is deteriorating and human populations have already grown dangerously large. Natural ecosystems the well-springs of a healthful environment are being irreversibly degraded.

Believers in this dismal picture argue that humans must practice “sustainable” economic growth and learn to live within the limitations of our scarce natural resources-or we will suffer irreparable consequences. Humans have been encroaching the physical environment for ages, over the years.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The major interventions occurred, when humans moved into settlements and convert forests into farmland and started to domesticate animals and plant trees. But this qualitative transformatic pales beside today’s massive bioengineering, deforestation and extracts of mineral and plant resources from the earth (in its Limits to Growth).

In this context the Club of Rome made the following predictions:

If present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food problems and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached within the next one hundred years. The most probable results will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

As humans spread around the globe, they tend to displace trees, wolves and marsh weeds to make way for farms, cities and human settlements. Many of the Earth’s vital resources are about to be exhausted, its atmospheric chemistry is deteriorating and human population have already grown dangerously large [6.53 billion (= 653 crores) in 2006], Natural ecosystems, the wellsprings of a healthy environment— are being irreversibly degraded. Economic growth and industrialisation are roads to environmental ruin.

Growing degradation in natural resources is now a serious problem of LDCs. This is the result of the interactions between the traditional sector (due to strong population pressure on limited land resources) and modern sector (with increased capital intensity through technology borrowing). This has resulted in growing poverty and inequality in the early stages of develop­ment of today’s LDCs. The environmental problem may be defined as the problem of natural resources exhaustion resulting from exploitation at speeds beyond their natural recovery rates, which endangers sustenance of life.

Poverty and Environmental Degradation :

The root cause of environmental degradation in LDCs is the growing incidence of poverty. Most people in LDCs, particularly in rural areas, do not have any private property. So they have to depend on certain common property resources.

There is no clearly defined legal right on such resources. As-a result, someone’s tree-cutting significantly reduces other’s opportunities of forest use, more so in view of the fact that forests are becoming scarce owing to population growth and economic activities (industrialisation and urbanisation).

Environmental problems are really serious in LDCs because changes in technology and institutions lag behind changes in resource endowments. With rapid growth of population, resources become more and more scarce.

At the same time, institutions for conserving scarce natural resources have been slow to develop. These two developments conjointly led to the serious depletion of common-property resources. This lag in institutional adjustment tends to become larger in LDCs due to poverty. In other words, poverty is the main cause of environmental destruction.

Rural Poverty and Environmental Destruction :

The main force behind environmental degradation in LDCs is pauperization of the rural popu­lation due to population pressure. As the supply of fertile land becomes scarce relative to in­creased population in traditional agriculture, poor people are forced to cultivate fragile land for subsistence in hills and mountains. This results in a high incidence of soil erosion.

In addition, they are forced to cut forests for timber and fuel as well as graze animals on pasture lands, exceeding the reproductive capacity of these natural resources. It is quite obvious that, in such a situation, dire poverty or destitution typically becomes a vicious circle.

Poverty results in malnutrition and reduces the poor people’s capacity for work, precluding them from gainful employment opportunities. They are thereby forced to rely more heavily on the exploitation of fragile natural resources in marginal areas, to which property rights are not assigned.

In order to prevent such environmental destruction due to rural poverty it is necessary for the government to regulate the use of environmentally fragile areas. However, if regulations are effectively enforced, a means of subsistence for the poor would disappear altogether.

How­ever, the real solution to the problem lies in increasing employment and income by improving the productivity of the limited land already in use. This solution implies shifting from tradi­tional resource-based to modern science-based agriculture, as symbolized by the Green Revo­lution.

The Green Revolution, however, has been criticised for environmental reasons, e.g., di­rected against fertilizers and chemicals — that poison the soil and water causing ecological and human health damage. Furthermore, irrigation without adequate drainage facilities tends to result in soil degradation through salinity and water logging.

However, if for all these reasons the efforts to develop modern technology were abandoned then employment and income-generating opportunities for marginal farmers and landless agri­cultural labourers would gradually disappear in the face of growing pressure of population on land. As a result, many would be forced to push cultivation frontiers into ecologically fragile land, resulting in increased incidence of flood and soil erosion.

Therefore, it is necessary to overcome the defects of modern agricultural technology by strengthening scientific research. In addition, it is not in the Tightness of things to restrict the distribution of agricultural technology to favourable production environments with good irri­gation conditions. Instead, it has to be extended to both productivity increases and environ­mental conservation in fragile areas through such means as agro-forestry and complementary use of arable lands and grasslands.

No doubt rapid population growth in the face of low total factor productivity is the root cause of poverty in most LDCs. And growing incidence of poverty is the root cause of environ­mental degradation. In this context, W. Beckerman has made the following comment on the relationship among population, economic development and pollution:

“The important environmental problems for the 75% of the world’s population that live in developing countries are local problems of access to safe drinking water or decent sanitation, and urban degradation. Furthermore in the end the best and probably the only way to attain a decent environment in most countries is to become rich.

The economy and the environment are complex interdependent systems. Continued eco­nomic growth and even human survival depend on natural resources used in production and on the life-supporting services of natural ecosystems. But overuse of natural resources and discharging polluted waters into the environment may threaten those ecosystems.

Thus soci­eties require feedback mechanisms to signal the health of their combined economic and en­vironmental systems and to take timely corrective actions; otherwise economic growth will not be sustainable and the growth and life supporting services of the environment will not continue as economic activity expands.

Urban Poverty and Environment :

For both rural and urban areas the poor are the first to be endangered by environmental degradation. If this damage to poor people coincides with unequal income distribution, social and political stability—the basis of economic growth—will be severely undermined.

If left unchecked, environmental degradation due to pollution tends to progress cumulatively and will have devastating consequences in the long run. It is, therefore, of strategic significance for developing countries to lower the peaks of the environmental Kuznets curve in order to sustain their economic growth.

Pollution arising from industrialisation and urbanisation can be suppressed in developing countries to a much lower level than experienced by advanced economies in the past if technologies and know-how accumulated in the latter are effectively applied to the former.

It is not much difficult to counteract environmental degradation by designing the institutions and policies to promote adoption of anti-pollution technologies. The core of the environmental problem is the divergence between private and social costs in the use of the environment, which induces overuse of environmental resources or exploitation of such resources above socially optimal levels. Therefore, the environmental problem can be solved by raising the private cost of utilizing the environment (such as discharging noxious gas into the air) relative to social cost.

The Sustainability Issue :

The interactions between the economy and the environment prompt the question of whether over time continued expansion of economic activity is consistent with ecological stability — with continued functioning of the ecosystem on which all human activities and life system ultimately depend.

A growing economy will use natural resource inputs and discharge wastes, progressively changing the environment on which it depends. The resulting reduction in the quality and quantity of natural inputs, waste sinks, amenities and life support services will endanger continued growth and gains in human welfare, perhaps even human survival, unless timely corrective actions are taken.

How do we achieve continued compatibility between economic decisions and environ­mental service flows as economic activity expands? This is the genesis of the modern concept of sustainability.

For most economists, sustainability is:

1. Seeking to ensure that current economic decisions take full account of economy environment interactions, now and in the future;

2. Concern about the well-being of people in both present and the future, involving both meeting the needs of the present and preserving the capacity of the future generations to be no less well off than the present generation.

Two Types of Sustainability :

In the opinion of R. M., Solow, sustainability is achieved not by preserving specific natural resources, but by maintaining a broad aggregate of natural and created capital. This is the concept of weak sustainability.

Some environmental economists take the view that the ability of created capital to substi­tute for natural resources is limited, in particular, in the case of ecological life support services on which all planetary life ultimately depends. This leads to the concept of strong sustainability.

Strong sustainability requires the maintenance of an aggregate of natural capital or the protec­tion of special natural capital believed essential to the well-being of people in the future. Effective implementation of both strong and weak sustainability imposes additional infor­mation demand on planners; the need to value different items of natural and created capital and possibly in the case of strong sustainability, the ability to identify the specific natural capital essential to future well-being.

Other Views of Sustainability :

Ecologists identify sustainability with ecological resilience—the ability of ecosystems to main­tain their physical and biological functioning after disturbance. An ecosystem is resilient and, therefore, sustainable, if it can reestablish it, with its biological functioning, if not all of its constituent species—unchanged after a cyclone or a volcanic eruption or an oil spill.

Ecosystem resilience does not require stability or even survival of all the ecosystem’s con­stituent species, including humans. Humanity is just one species living in and deriving life support from ecosystems. The dissonance between economist’s and ecologist’s conceptions of sustainability brings into focus the important point that for most people, sustainability is a human-centred, rather than a nature-centred concept. The environment may change, but it should not change so much as to endanger human lives or living standards.

According to most ecologists, this type of stability is not a natural property of environmental systems; rather these are dynamic and evolve over long periods of time. Humans may be more comfortable with the notion of a stable envi­ronment, but, in reality, the processes of environmental change are chance driven, with no inher­ent stability. And, since we live in a world governed by chance, we cannot calculate what nature will throw up next; sustainability policies that aim at desired future states of the world are not necessarily in harmony with nature.

Empirical studies show that pollution trends tend to follow an inverse U-shaped curve across different stages of economic development. See Fig. 1. At low levels of income at E, subsistence agriculture generates hardly any pollution. Then, with initial stages of development, the growth of heavy industries increases pollution control, leading to higher per capita pollution at F.

The rising part of the curve occurs because urbanisation, accompanied by the growth of highly polluting industries, often replaces agriculture in the early stages of development. As steel plants replace subsistence farming, it is nearly inevitable that air pollution will become worse, particularly in low income countries which cannot afford much pollution abatement.

Finally, with pollution abatement and the trend away from industry and towards services in advanced countries, pollution decreases at G. As income rises, countries tend to invest in pollution abatement and their economic structures evolve towards services and away from heavy industries, reducing pollution. This can explain the inverted U-shaped pollution curve, also called Environmental Kuznets Curve.

The environment is vital for all of us because it provides a life support system. It provides inputs for production of economic goods and services. It also acts as a waste sink. However, in the last five decades there has been growing concern about the effect of economic activity on the physical environment.

It has been argued that economic growth has caused serious environmental damage and the current state of the environment will hamper future economic development. The poor in developing countries are often depending on the natural environment for their livelihood and even their continued existence. The damage to the environment and the relationship between the environment and the economy are often thought to be of more importance to developing countries.

Economic Growth and the Environment :

Environmentalists have argued that unconstrained economic growth will lead to the exhaustion of non-renewable resources and to levels of environment degradation that will seriously affect production of desirable goods and services and the quality and existence of life.

It has been suggested that in the early stages of economic development the level of environmental degradation increases, but after this phase the environment improves with economic development. This behavioural pattern is captured by the U-shaped environ­mental Kuznets’ curve, as shown in Figure 1.

Sustainable Development :

It has been widely held that present patterns of economic growth may seriously degrade the environment and may be unsustainable, as the environment cannot support economic growth forever. It is alleged that past and present economic policies have usually been concerned with providing the conditions for economic growth, as measured by standard national accounting methods.

Many environmentalists are concerned that these policies have not attempted to ensure the existence of ecological conditions necessary to support human life at a specified level of well-being through future generations.

This concern is of major importance in the concept of sustainable development. SD has become perhaps the most important approach as the relation between the environments on development is concerned. According to the Brundland Report (1987), “SD seeks to meet the needs are aspirates of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The concept of SD has become a standard model for thinking about the environment development and the economy. The concern for equity between and within generations is central to most interpretations of the concept.

Natural Capital, Equity and Environment :

For ensuring substantially, the stock of capital has to be preserved (i.e., it should be allowed to decline over time). A constant (increasing) stock of capital will permit consumption levels to be maintained (increased). In this context we may refer to two views on sustainability. The weak sustainability view treats all the different forms of capital (e.g., man-made, human, natural and social) as substitutes.

So they can be aggregated to form total capital. Thus, for example, degrading the natural fertility of the soil can be compensated for by using chemical fertilizers and modern scientific methods to maintain (or even raise) yield per hectare. This means that human and man-made capital are used as substitutes for natural capital.

The strong sustainability view takes the position that it is only natural capital that needs to be held constant or increased. The focus, according to this view, is often on critical natural capital which is either required for human survival or cannot be substituted for with other forms of capital. Thus one might take atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as critical natural capital as higher levels cannot be offset by other types of capital.

Preserving of increasing the stock of natural capital has important effects on inter-generational equity. If it is believed that present level of environmental degradation and resource use will substantially alter future human economic welfare, then just by preserving natural capital intergenerational equity may be improved. This is the strong sustainability view.

However, the substitution of this constraint by a more flexible approach that allows greater use of natural capital could, in all likelihood, raise economic welfare measured across all present and future generations. This is the weak sustainability view.

Many environmental effects are irreversible, for example, the extinction of a species. Irreversibility demands maintenance of the natural capital stock.

It is also suggested that the larger the stock of natural capital, the more resilient an ecosystem is likely to be. (The resilience of an eco-system is judged by its ability to maintain its normal functions often as external disturbance). And the diversity of the eco-system increases its resilience.

The constancy of the stock of natural capital could be interpreted as constancy of all types of natural capital. This means that any use of non-renewable resources would not be compatible with SD.

International Agents and the Environment :

Since 1990 the World Bank and other international agencies have a formulated environment related support programmes, i.e., programmes supporting development, while supporting the importance of the environment in economic development. The WB supports the sustainable development view.

First, it has highlighted the need for assessing all those projects which are expected to generate adverse environmental effects.

Secondly, poverty is found to be the major cause of environmental damage. The reason is that the poor people heavily depend on the environment.

The WTO has recognised the trade-off between trade and the environment and that environmental concerns could lead to protectionism. In spite of this the WTO supports the objective of SD and has been involved in assisting multilateral environmental agreements and increasing the awareness of links between trade and the environment.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992—the Rio Earth Summit—leached agreements among 150 countries on reducing global warming by limiting atmospheric emissions by the year 2000 to their 1990 levels.

At the 1997 Kyoto Conference, greenhouse gas emission targets were fixed. The Conference also considered specific programmes to achieve SD in the 21 st century. One of the underlying assumptions of the concept of SD is that poverty is an important cause of environment degradation. It is to this issue that we turn now.

Related Articles:

• Economic Development and Sustainable Development
• Relationship between Economic Growth and Economic Development
• Environment and Economic Development | Economics
• Net National Income and Per Capita Income as Growth Indicators

Test Resources

TOEFL® Resources by Michael Goodine

Toefl writing academic discussion question: economic growth.

This is the second writing question on the TOEFL iBT Test. Get more samples here .

The test-taker must read the question posted by the professor and the two student responses.  Finally, they should write their own response which addresses the question and adds to the conversation. They have ten minutes to complete the task.

Your professor is teaching a class on political science. Write a post responding to the professor’s question.  In your response, you should

• express and support your personal opinion
• make a contribution to the discussion in your own words

An effective response will contain at least 100 words. You have ten minutes to write.

Sample Answer 1 (with template)

Here’s a possible response to the above question.  It directly addresses the responses given by the other students.  As you can see, it elaborates on and challenges the arguments they made.  Some test-takers find this approach easiest.

This is a challenging topic, but I think we should prioritize the environment at this time. I strongly agree with Alex’s idea that our lives will be unpleasant if we focus entirely on economic growth. I would add that if the environment is damaged by industrial development we’ll all be more likely to suffer from serious ailments like cancer and lung disease. These sorts of illnesses can be a real strain on our medical systems.  Maggie raised the relevant point that it’s possible that profitable companies will someday solve all of our problems using new technology, but she doesn’t mention that they might arrive far too late to be of use.  For example, it could take decades for an innovative company to create a source of clean energy.

Sample Answer 2 (with template)

Here’s a slightly different approach to the question.  It mostly ignores the responses given by the other students.  Instead, it focuses mostly on my own ideas.  This is an acceptable approach to the question.

While I appreciate the points mentioned by both Maggie and Alex , I think that we should mainly focus on economic growth.  This is because our lives will become unpleasant if the economy slows down.  We all have bills to pay and those require us to earn an income. Remember that many people have families to take care of, so they need to earn a regular income.  That is only possible if the economy continues to grow at the same rate year after year. Some people may feel that preserving the environment is more important than maintaining our current standard of living, but I tend to disagree. My main focus is on the quality of life that people enjoy at this exact moment, not the lives that future generations will lead.

Need Help Preparing for the TOEFL Writing Section?

To have your practice essays scored and graded by me, check out my essay evaluation service .  I’ll grade your TOEFL essays and correct them line by line.  I’ll even tell you how to do better when you take the real test.

Economic Growth and Development Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Differences between economic growth and economic development When compared to economic development as we are to witness shortly, economic growth is a simpler and narrower subject (Acemoglu, 2009). According to the presented definitions, economic growth is a constant and sustained increase in a countries output graded as national.

The increase is depicted on the growth indicators such as education quality of citizens, how healthy a nation is, the technological adaptation rates and quantity of improvement recorded in the way technology is applied (Weil 2005).

The most common way of looking at economic growth is through the sustained improvement in the value of goods and services which are under current production in the contemporary operational environments. When a record increase is made on a country’s GDP, we pronounce an economic growth (Weil 2005).

GDP is the measure used because it shows the sum total of consumption, investments, government expenditure and the net export over a single financial period; they are used for financial forecasting (Friedman 2005).

This mode does not represent an informal size of economy; the rate at which environmental depletion through pollution takes place is likely to discourage growth aspects. Economic development on its part is a numerical indicator which uses numbers in gauging the economic well being of a country through it citizens who are the beneficiaries (Song & Woo 2008).

While economic growth bases its measurements on quantity, economic development is a measure of quality which applies in the context of morality. It is therefore vivid when living standards rise, also when the people realize and increase in their self- esteem and freedom in their operations hence wider options on choices.

Apart from GDP, Human Development Index(HDI) is also a tool used to determine Economic Development since this aspect covers even other factors affecting productivity like literacy levels and life expectancy of a countries population (Nafziger 2006).

Economic development supports economic growth definition and calculation by widening the opportunities in the economy’s productive sectors like health, education, employment and environment since in indicates the per capita income of every individual in a country (Song & Woo 2008).

Economic development busts the living standards through provision of basic requirements of life like health services, shelter, food and education (Nafziger 2006). Therefore, Economic Development is termed to major their concerns on sustainability measures. It is therefore prudent to mention that economic growth is an ingredient required for economic development though it is not needed singly.

Problems concerning measuring economic development and applicable cases Through National Income Accounting an economy maintains a record of its performance to help know how the economy is operating. The limitations of measuring economic development revolve around the setbacks shown by the measures used like the GDP and the HDI.

The measures are less accurate since they only measure Economic Development based on production value as opposed to the actual population; this is irrespective of the fact that the whole population is involved in consumption (McKibben 2007). Economic development describes efficiency on production effectiveness of the population.

If production alone was used in India to measure Economic development, India would today be the most developed country in the whole world since it has the largest GDP (Nafziger 2006). GDP as a measure of growth hence development does not include transactions which are non-market in nature in as much as they are representations of production roles.

This presents a difficulty in valuing production activities that are non- market in nature such as domestic farming in as much as they represent production. Others include cases where individuals do their own laundry and also painting their own houses.

This is applicable for developing countries such as Bangladesh whose economies’ are largely made up of the non-market items hence understatement of their GDP’s with non-market figures. GDP calculation also has the inability of involving adverse effects such as externalities and diseconomies of large-scale production (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi 2010).

Most economies still fails to recognize pollution and environmental hazards which are the greatest components and hence attracts high costs hence posing environmental threat. While the values of negative externalities are incorporated in GDP calculations the costs of the bad side effects are never inculcated resulting into inaccuracies of GDP to show economic development.

Therefore, it is important that the value of externalities be deducted from that of the GDP for it to be relied upon (Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi 2010). This is because the proposed replacements such as Net Economic Welfare (NEW) and Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) failed to pick given the bad effects such as pollution cannot be ignored.

The method of development calculation also fails to clearly differentiate between items produced and the quantity produced, specifically; it does not have the ability of noting all that is produced by an economy (Song & Woo 2008).

This is witnessed in cases where in comparing GDP’s of $480 and $659 of two countries, we would conclude the first country is more developed not knowing that the GDP of $659 is mainly composed of luxurious commodity which is against the spirit of social welfare and therefore unjustifiable Conclusion It is very therefore important to note that there is never a more reliable and more suitable measure that is placed for GDP measurement and translate them to Economic Development.

This therefore leaves us with economic development that is defined in a non-clear way since methods like Human Development index pose a challenge of difficulty in data collection (Okpaji 2008).

Acemoglu, D 2009, Introduction to modern economic growth , Princeton University Press: Princeton.

Friedman, BM 2005, The moral consequences of economic growth , Knopf: New York.

McKibben, B 2007, Deep economy: the wealth of communities and the durable future , Times Books: New York.

Nafziger, EW 2006, Economic development (4th ed.), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Okpaji, A 2008, Economic Progression at our time, Economic Times, 23 (48), 97.

Song, L & Woo, WT 2008, China’s dilemma: economic growth, the environment and climate change , Anu E Press: Canberra.

Stiglitz, JE, Sen, A & Fitoussi, J 2010, Mismeasuring our lives why GDP doesn’t add up , New Press: New York, N.Y.

Weil, DN 2005, Economic growth , Addison-Wesley: Boston.

• A Critical Evaluation of Externalities and Government Intervention Introduction
• The Royal Bank of Canada
• Public Internalization of Profit and Cost Externalities
• General Electric Company: Globalization Impact on Business Strategies
• Economic Growth and Environment Relation
• Canadian Industrialization
• China’s Path to Economic Dominance
• Tourism Role in Economic Development
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, May 20). Economic Growth and Development. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/

"Economic Growth and Development." IvyPanda , 20 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Economic Growth and Development'. 20 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Economic Growth and Development." May 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/economic-growth-and-development-essay/.

Broadband Internet Access, Economic Growth, and Wellbeing

Between 2000 and 2008, access to high-speed, broadband internet grew significantly in the United States, but there is debate on whether access to high-speed internet improves or harms wellbeing. We find that a ten percent increase in the proportion of county residents with access to broadband internet leads to a 1.01 percent reduction in the number of suicides in a county, as well as improvements in self-reported mental and physical health. We further find that this reduction in suicide deaths is likely due to economic improvements in counties that have access to broadband internet. Counties with increased access to broadband internet see reductions in poverty rate and unemployment rate. In addition, zip codes that gain access to broadband internet see increases in the numbers of employees and establishments. In addition, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effects are concentrated in the working age population, those between 25 and 64 years old. This pattern is precisely what is predicted by the literature linking economic conditions to suicide risk.

We are grateful to participants at the Association of Public Policy and Management and the Washington Area Labor Symposium conferences for their helpful comments. Any errors or conclusions are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

Download Citation Data

Mentioned in the News

More from nber.

In addition to working papers , the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter , the NBER Digest , the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability , the Bulletin on Health , and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship  — as well as online conference reports , video lectures , and interviews .

Home — Essay Samples — Economics — Retirement — Time to Retire the Penny: Economic and Environmental Imperatives

Time to Retire The Penny: Economic and Environmental Imperatives

• Categories: Retirement

About this sample

Words: 706 |

Published: Jun 6, 2024

Words: 706 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Diminishing purchasing power, economic inefficiencies, environmental impact, counterarguments and rebuttals.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Economics

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 1060 words

5 pages / 2444 words

2 pages / 1099 words

2 pages / 1045 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Retirement

When you are young, it is really very challenging to think about retirement planning. Young people are busy starting careers, families, or settling in new locations, so it is understandable that they have the unwillingness to [...]

Interesting, NEO is a blockchain “platform” that rents out its underlying tech stack, enabling the development of digital assets and smart contracts on top of its own infrastructure. Generally speaking, NEO’s value proposition [...]

Introduction: It is a form of digital currency, which needs to be encrypted in order to be generated in units of currency and to be operated independently. The Crypto-currencies are a revolutionary new form of money that are [...]

The burgeoning economic growth that corporate India witnessed since the 1990s brought to the forefront the need for Indian companies to adopt corporate governance practices and standards, which are consistent with [...]

“Supply and demand” are two of the most well-known words in the subject of economics. Simply put, “supply” is the amount of something that is available, or can be made available, to consumers. “Demand” is how much consumers want [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

PHILIPPINES: Bolstering Resilience Against Climate Change Key to Sustaining Inclusive Growth

MANILA, June 4, 2024 – The Philippines needs to intensify steps to bolster community resilience against the effects of climate change and extreme weather to minimize economic disruption and sustain inclusive growth, the World Bank’s Philippines Economic Update (PEU), released today, says.

In addition, the government needs to improve the efficiency, transparency, and inclusive use of public resources in climate adaptation, mitigation, response, and rehabilitation, the report says.

"The current El Niño phenomenon exemplifies the severe disruptions that extreme weather events, intensified by climate change, can cause ,” said World Bank Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand Ndiamé Diop . “These disruptions include impacts on educational services, reductions in farm yields, and constraints on water and electricity supplies. Proactive measures to bolster community resilience against such climatic challenges are crucial and can significantly mitigate their adverse effects on the country's growth outlook."

The Philippine economy is forecast to accelerate to 5.8% growth in 2024 from 5.5% last year and to 5.9% in 2025. Growth is expected to be driven by strong household consumption, sustained strength in the services sector, and improved trade stemming from a rebound in global demand for goods and the continued recovery of services exports such as tourism.

The growth forecast is based on the expectation that inflation will ease, thus strengthening household purchasing power. Growth is expected to benefit from the government's commitment to shore up public investment, with public investment plans averaging 5.7% of GDP from 2024 to 2026, including 124 new flagship infrastructure projects.

However, higher than expected inflation, extreme weather and climate change, global geopolitical tensions, tighter than expected financial conditions, and the possibility of a sharper slowdown in China pose risks to the growth outlook. A prolonged El Niño event, and possibly a La Niña, could strain the domestic food supply and trigger an increase in inflation.

“To manage inflation, the continued implementation of non-monetary strategies is essential, including efforts to optimize supply and demand management and to secure timely and adequate imports of staple food items,” said World Bank Senior Economist Ralph Van Doorn . “The government needs to continue providing social assistance to vulnerable groups who are disproportionately affected by high food inflation.”

In September 2023, the government launched the El Niño National Action Plan focusing on building resilience in water, agriculture, electricity, health, and public safety. To effectively manage the impacts of El Niño, a climate pattern produced by warming oceans, the government has implemented strategic measures, including financial assistance to rice farmers, fuel subsidies for farmers and fishers, and allocations for insurance claims and credit assistance for affected farmers and fishers.

The report also emphasizes the importance of enhancing revenue collection to sustainably finance the country's development priorities. Achieving the Philippines’ fiscal targets by 2028 and sustainably financing the government’s development priorities will rely on more robust tax revenues.

Additional revenue efforts could focus on broadening the tax base, rationalizing tax incentives, strengthening tax administration, and improving collection efficiency. Fiscal consolidation could help preserve confidence in the economy, leading to an increase in private investment and productivity, and would lead to sustainable increases in public investment in infrastructure, health, and education.

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

Our coverage of global economics, from inflation-fighting central banks to apprehensive financial markets

American consumers are finally cheering up

Much to the relief of Joe Biden

The world’s richest countries in 2023

Our ranking compares economies in three different ways

These are the world’s most expensive cities

EIU’s cost-of-living index shows where prices are highest

Which city is the cheapest in the world?

The cost of living there is a little over a tenth of what it is in New York

What Donald Trump can learn from the Big Mac index

Should the presidential candidate go on another crusade against the yuan?

The US economy

Is America’s economy heading for a consumer crunch?

Warning signs have started to appear. But there are reasons for optimism

America is in the midst of an extraordinary startup boom

How the country revived its go-getting spirit

America’s 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs: bad policy, worse leadership

The global trade system is disintegrating as you read this

Joe Biden, master oil trader

The president has turned volatility into profit

Biden outdoes Trump with ultra-high China tariffs

The move, which hits electric vehicles, carries an environmental cost

The world’s economic order is breaking down

Critics will miss globalisation when it is gone

America’s reckless borrowing is a danger to its economy—and the world’s

America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten, china’s economy.

China’s economic model retains a dangerous allure

Despite the country’s current struggles, autocrats elsewhere see a lot to admire

Xi Jinping’s surprising new source of economic advice

What China’s leader may learn from a pair of reform-minded academics

Has China reached peak emissions?

It hopes to de-link its carbon emissions from economic growth

Even Xi Jinping is struggling to fix regional inequality

Will China’s vast hinterland ever catch up with its wealthy coast?

How the Chinese state aims to calm the property market

Officials appear willing to spend public money on private capitalists

The property firm that could break China’s back

If Vanke collapses, so might confidence in the state’s management of the economy

China’s youth are rebelling against long hours

What xi jinping gets wrong about china’s economy, russia’s economy.

European banks are making heady profits in Russia

But for how much longer?

Russia’s gas business will never recover from the war in Ukraine

Hopes of a Chinese rescue look increasingly vain

Frozen Russian assets will soon pay for Ukraine’s war

And America now hopes to convince others to make better use of the stash

How a Russia-linked mine may keep the ANC in power

South Africa’s ruling party was broke a few months ago, but its fortunes are changing

Asia’s economies

Will India’s new government turbocharge the fight against poverty?

India and China have taken very different approaches to the problem

Japanese businesses are trapped between America and China

Could geopolitics kill off an incipient corporate revival?

Narendra Modi’s flagship growth scheme is off to a sluggish start

Without improvements, it risks wasting trillions of rupees

Singapore has achieved astounding economic success

Can Lawrence Wong, its incoming PM, oversee further growth?

Japan is wrong to try to prop up the yen

Supporting the currency is expensive and futile

How strong is India’s economy?

It isn’t the next China, but it could still transform itself and the world

Without fanfare, the Philippines is getting richer

Who’s the big boss of the global south, europe’s economies.

Can Britain’s economy grow as fast as it needs to?

Labour is banking on a big upswing in growth. It will struggle to get one

At long last, Europe’s economy is starting to grow

Now for the hard part

Is Britain levelling up?

Some town centres are getting prettier. Yawning economic gaps remain

Threats to Europe’s economy are mounting. Finance can help fortify it

Time to press ahead with banking and capital-market reforms

Against expectations, European banks are thriving

Many are now ripe for a takeover

How has the Bank of England dealt with four years of shocks?

Its credibility is battered but intact. It can do better

The triple shock facing Europe’s economy

Europe’s economy is under attack from all sides.