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The ecological and societal problems caused by product obsolescence and consumerism in modern economies constitute a “wicked human‐made problem” of significant magnitude. Current (old) ways of thinking cannot address these problems. Accordingly, in this paper, we critically explore the novel idea of integrated personhood and worldviews to theorize research on self‐repairers and their repair behaviours to extend product lifetimes. We conducted a structured and systematic review of published work (n = 183) to identify the conceptual content of the field to inform our theorization. Our findings highlight three key issues. First, constricted theorization undermines understanding of self‐repairers and their product lifetime extension (and spillover) behaviours. Second, the underlying conceptual complexity is typically underestimated. Third, the dominance of voluntarist and deterministic studies impedes new directions in research. From our review, an integrated worldview–personhood framework emerges that can deepen understanding of avant‐garde self‐repairers’ engagement with product lifetimes.

This article documents trans‐disciplinary collaboration between system dynamics (SD) practitioners and economists to produce knowledge useful for studying ecological–economic systems. The article introduces a multi‐sector, ecological–economic model (EEM) of population–resource dynamics. Incorporating key concepts from economics on markets and prices, the model shows that SD models are able to represent the complex dynamics of an EEM, including out‐of‐equilibrium states and adaptation that strive to find new equilibria more realistically. The sensitivity analyses produce important implications, including the major finding that model behavior varies significantly with the degrees of price adjustment times. This finding justifies the Meadows' et al. limits to growth model, which omits an endogenous price mechanism, and also suggests that further research on non‐instantaneous price adaptation mechanisms is needed. The article encourages modellers to incorporate out‐of‐equilibrium aspects of an economic system as appropriate and highlights the potential for SD practitioners to contribute to economics, especially ecological economics. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In order to cope with the increasing scarcity of final dump sites for household wastes, the UK recently introduced an environmental policy targeted at the firms that produce and sell products that generate packaging wastes. This policy requires such businesses to hold predetermined numbers of tradable credits called "Packaging waste Recovery Notes" (PRNs). This article provides insights into the economic implications of such a policy through a simple analytical model of a recyclable product and the PRN markets. Our analysis yield two particularly interesting results. First, an increase in the required recycling rate dampens the output and landfill waste levels, while the effect on the level of recycling activities is ambiguous. Second, an increase in the landfill tax always leads to an increase in the landfill waste. We also discuss how the socially optimal landfill tax in the presence of the PRN market should be chosen.

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