AN OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS MODEL OF GROWTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: JOHN, A; PECCHENINO, R
• 署名单位: Michigan State University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.2307/2235455
• 发表日期: 1994
• 页码: 1393-1410
• 关键词: increasing returns; RESOURCES

摘要

This article analyses the potential conflict between economic growth and the maintenance of environmental quality in an overlapping generations model. Short-lived individuals make decisions which have long-lasting effects on both factor productivity and the environment. The model provides a theoretical explanation of observed correlations between environmental quality and income, whereby economic growth is associated first with declines, then improvements, in environmental quality. It suggests circumstances in which multiple Pareto-ranked steady-state equilibria may arise, and in which sustained growth of both capital and environmental quality may occur. Overmaintenance of the environment, analogous to dynamically inefficient over-accumulation of capital, may emerge.