CU-Boulder ECON 4999 - THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

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Pearce and Turner Chapter 2 • THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY 2.1 NARROW AND HOLISTIC VIEWS OF ECONOMIES AND ENVIRONMENTS Undergraduate economics textbooks now pay some attention to issues of environmental economics. But, typically, this attention is confined to supplying an `add on' chapter illustrating how the theory in the rest of the book can be applied to environmental issues. The danger in this approach is that it obscures the fundamental ways in which the consideration of environmental matters affects our economic thinking. Figure 2.1 shows a stylised picture of economy and environment interactions. At this stage, the diagram is deliberately vague - we make it more meaningful on p. 35. The upper square, or `matrix', shows the economy. We consider shortly what might enter into this matrix, but the point for the moment is that economics textbooks are primarily concerned with that matrix only. For example, economics will be concerned with the way in which the various component parts of the economy interact - how consumer demand affects steel output, how the production of automobiles affects the demand for steel, how the overall size of the economy can be expanded, and so on. The lower square shows the environment. This consists of all in situ resources - energy sources, fisheries, land, the capacity of the environment to assimilate waste products, and so on. Clearly, there are interactions within this matrix as well. Water supply affects fisheries, forests affect water supply and soil quality, the supply of prey affects the number of predators, and so on. Just as within the economy matrix the relationships studied are between economic entities, so within the environment matrix the entities studied appear Figure 2.1 General environment-economy interaction.to have no economic dimension. Environmental economics is concerned with both matrices in Figure 2.1. Moreover, it concentrates on the interactions between the matrices - how the demand for steel affects the demand for water, how changing the size of the economy ('economic growth) affects the functions of the environment, and so on. Environmental economics thus tends to be more holistic than economics as traditionally construed - it takes a wider, more all-encompassing view of the workings of an economy. Because it is more holistic there is a temptation to think that environmental economics is somewhat `better' than economics as it is traditionally taught. This has led some people to think of environmental economics as an `alternative' economics, as something that is somehow in competition with the main body of economic doctrine. This is a muddled view. In this textbook we show how we can use the main body of economic thought to derive important propositions about the linkages between the economy and the environment. Rather than looking for some `different' economics, we are seeking to expand the horizons of economic thought. This does not mean that there cannot be an `alternative' economics, but such an economics would have to alter the paradigms of the central body of modern economic thought. Chapter 1 has discussed such alternative paradigms. The view taken here, however, is that we have a great deal to learn from our horizon-expanding application of modern economics, and that the search for `alternatives' is premature. Moreover, we would argue that many of the concerns of those who are motivated to find alternative ways of thinking can be accommodated within the paradigms used in this text. Modern neoclassical economics is far from faultless, however. We attempt to show what we believe to be true and what we believe to be false in the many critiques available. 2.2 THE ENVIRONMENT-ECONOMY INTERACTION We now need to make Figure 2.1 more meaningful since we did not specify formally what interactions take place within economies, within environments and between economies and environments. We begin with the economy and then expand the picture to include environments. Figure 2.2 pictures the economy as a set of relationships between inputs and outputs. The diagram looks a little complicated but it is fairly easy to follow. It is a big box, or matrix, made up of a series of smaller boxes or matrices. Notice that two of the categories on the vertical axis - commodities and industries - also appear on the horizontal axis. We need to define the terms used. A `commodity' is anything that is processed, exchanged and produced in the economy - a factory is a commodity, so is a machine, so is a TV set or take-away meal. Coal in the ground is not a commodity because it has not been processed nor yet subjected to any exchange within the economy. Industries have a familiar meaning; they are simply the institutions that undertake economic activity in the form of production or providing a service. Figure 2.2 also contains an entry for `primary'inputs. This refers to labour and capital, but not to land which we treat separately when Figure 2.2 is developed further. `Final demand' refers to the set of demands in the economy by final consumers, e.g. households. These demands are assumed to be determined by factors outside the model - they are said to be `exogenous'. The numbers in each small matrix simply remind us that each matrix has a number of component parts - for example there are M industries, N commodities, G final demands, and so on. For our purposes we need not worry further with these numbers. The relevant matrices have been labelled. Matrix A shows the input of commodities to industries. So, for a given industry, say steel, this matrix will tell us how much is required of each other commodity used in the production of steel. Matrix B shows the output of each commodity by each industry. Matrix C shows how much each industry spends on primary inputs - labour and capital. Matrix D shows the final demand for commodities, i.e. how much of each commodity is required to meet each type of final demand. Matrix E shows the expenditure on each primary input according to each category of final demand. This leaves us with the column and row titled `totals'. These are not actually matrices in the sense we have been using. For example, box F shows the total demand forcommodities and this is made up of industrial demand for commodities (matrix A) and final demand for commodities (matrix D). But it will appear as a single list of demands classified by the N commodities. This list is known as a'vector'. So, it might appear as x units of


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CU-Boulder ECON 4999 - THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

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