Scarcity and Growth Revisited

Scarcity and Growth Revisited
Author: R. David Professor Simpson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012-05-23
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 113652472X

In this volume, a group of distinguished international scholars provides a fresh investigation of the most fundamental issues involved in our dependence on natural resources. In Scarcity and Growth (RFF, 1963) and Scarcity and Growth Reconsidered (RFF, 1979), researchers considered the long-term implications of resource scarcity for economic growth and human well-being. Scarcity and Growth Revisited examines these implications with 25 years of new learning and experience. It finds that concerns about resource scarcity have changed in essential ways. In contrast with the earlier preoccupation with the adequacy of fuel, mineral, and agricultural resources and the efficiency by which they are allocated, the greatest concern today is about the Earth‘s limited capacity to handle the environmental consequences of resource extraction and use. Opinion among scholars is divided on the ability of technological innovation to ameliorate this 'new scarcity.' However, even the book‘s more optimistic authors agree that the problems will not be successfully overcome without significant advances in the legal, financial, and other social institutions that protect the environment and support technical innovation. Scarcity and Growth Revisited incorporates expert perspectives from the physical and life sciences, as well as economics. It includes issues confronting the developing world as well as industrialized societies. The book begins with a review of the debate about scarcity and economic growth and a review of current assessments of natural resource availability and consumption. The twelve chapters that follow provide an accessible, lively, and authoritative update to an enduring-but changing-debate.

Advanced Public Procurement as Industrial Policy

Advanced Public Procurement as Industrial Policy
Author: Gunnar Eliasson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2010-03-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1441958495

This study is about the macroeconomic effects of positive externalities or industrial spillovers around advanced production. The case explored is the “technology di- dend” around Swedish aircraft industry, and in particular around the aircraft ma- facturer Saab, and the major industrial project of the JAS 39 Gripen multirole combat aircraft. The project is partly an updating of my book (in Swedish) Technology 1 Generator or a National Presige Project from 1995, but extends the analysis in s- eral directions. The study includes a chapter on spillovers from advanced production in an industrially developing economy, South Africa, that has acquired the JAS 39 Gripen for its Air Force. There is also a chapter in which the results for Sweden are discussed in the wider context of advanced public procurement in Europe. The text has been organized such that the main chapters have been written for academic readers. Two supplements include the technical details of data collection, mathematical models, and calculation methods. The first chapter is brief and focused on the results. It has the character of an extended executive summary. The second chapter summarizes the entire story; problems, results, and methods. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of a number of people. First of all great thanks go to all those people with crowded calendars in Swedish industrial firms that have set aside time to respond to my questions. Most of them have been listed at the end of the book.

The Economics of R&D Policy

The Economics of R&D Policy
Author: Gregory Tassey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 262
Release: 1997-11-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0313370435

Industry officials and government policymakers have for some time decried the lack of a framework for establishing and defending Research and Development (R&D) policies. Effective policy requires an understanding of the underlying economics. This book offers models and analysis of the economic elements that drive technology-based growth with emphasis on their implications for policy analysis. It also compares existing U.S. policies with those used in Europe and Japan. The results of these models and analysis is a framework for matching various forms of underinvestment with efficient strategic and policy responses. This market-failure based approach enables industry and government R&D initiatives to be developed, analyzed, and implemented with greater success than previously attained. The first part of the book analyzes economic trends to show how they are affected by technological change and the evolving nature of foreign competition. R&D spending patterns are studied to identify and characterize market failures that prevent adequate private-sector investments in technology. A model is presented for a typical technology-based industry. The second part looks at specific technologies and policies that impact R&D investment and that have been the subject of intense policy debate.

Market Behaviour and Macroeconomic Modelling

Market Behaviour and Macroeconomic Modelling
Author: Simon Kuipers
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1998-11-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349267325

Market Behaviour and Macroeconomic Modelling discusses several state-of-the-art developments in the modelling approach to market behaviour in macroeconomic modelling. Leading experts in this field, deal with the implications of market imperfections in commodity markets, capital markets and labour markets for macroeconomic modelling and stabilization policy. They demonstrate that incorporating market imperfections leads to very different policy recommendations than those derived from the standard perfect competition model.