Energy, diversity and development in economic systems; an empirical analysis

Templet, Paul H.

doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(98)00085-8

Cited by 74 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In fact, there are analogous studies of economic systems that maintain diversity and resource effi ciency, e.g. the energy effi ciency comparison of different US states (Templet, 1999(Templet, , 2004a(Templet, , 2004b. However, there are processes in ecological systems that are extraordinarily ineffi cient.…”

Section: Optimization Versus Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective

2008

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Business strategy with regard to sustainability is currently dominated by an eco-effi ciency approach that seeks to simultaneously reduce costs and environmental impacts using tactics such as waste minimization or reuse, pollution prevention or technological improvement. However, in practice, eco-effi ciency optimization rarely results in improved diversity or adaptability and consequently may have perverse consequences to sustainability by eroding the resilience of production systems. This editorial article contrasts a resilience approach with an eco-effi ciency approach as they relate to strategic sustainable development. In some cases, the system attributes that are critically important to resilience -such as spare capacity, reserve resource stocks and redundancy -are in opposition to ecoeffi ciency. Our most important insight is the realization that investments in what may seem counter to eco-effi ciency can nonetheless be important for sustainability.

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Section: Optimization Versus Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective

2008

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“…Sustainability can be enhanced by strategies which promote resource use efficiency in economic systems (Templet, 1999). Efficient use of resources forms the keystone of policy, planning and business approaches to sustainable development but there are a wide range of potential interpretations of the efficiency concept (Jollands, 2006a,b).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable value assessment of farms using frontier efficiency benchmarks

Passel

Huylenbroeck

Lauwers³

et al. 2009

Journal of Environmental Management

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a b s t r a c tAppropriate assessment of firm sustainability facilitates actor-driven processes towards sustainable development. The methodology in this paper builds further on two proven methodologies for the assessment of sustainability performance: it combines the sustainable value approach with frontier efficiency benchmarks. The sustainable value methodology tries to relate firm performance to the use of different resources. This approach assesses contributions to corporate sustainability by comparing firm resource productivity with the resource productivity of a benchmark, and this for all resources considered. The efficiency is calculated by estimating the production frontier indicating the maximum feasible production possibilities. In this research, the sustainable value approach is combined with efficiency analysis methods to benchmark sustainability assessment. In this way, the production theoretical underpinnings of efficiency analysis enrich the sustainable value approach. The methodology is presented using two different functional forms: the Cobb-Douglas and the translog functional forms. The simplicity of the Cobb-Douglas functional form as benchmark is very attractive but it lacks flexibility. The translog functional form is more flexible but has the disadvantage that it requires a lot of data to avoid estimation problems. Using frontier methods for deriving firm specific benchmarks has the advantage that the particular situation of each company is taken into account when assessing sustainability. Finally, we showed that the methodology can be used as an integrative sustainability assessment tool for policy measures.

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“…However, both the amount and the types of goods that a country produces affect economic growth [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Important new facts have been uncovered by analyzing large amounts of high-quality data pertaining to international trade.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capabilities' substitutability and the “S” curve of export diversity

Lei

Zhang

2014

EPL

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Product diversity, which is highly important in economic systems, has been highlighted by recent studies on international trade. We found an empirical pattern, designated as the "S-shaped curve", that models the relationship between economic size (logarithmic GDP) and export diversity (the number of varieties of export products) on the detailed international trade data. As the economic size of a country begins to increase, its export diversity initially increases in an exponential manner, but overtime, this diversity growth slows and eventually reaches an upper limit. The interdependence between size and diversity takes the shape of an S-shaped curve that can be fitted by a logistic equation. To explain this phenomenon, we introduce a new parameter called "substitutability" into the list of capabilities or factors of products in the tri-partite network model (i.e., the countrycapability-product model) of Hidalgo et al. As we observe, when the substitutability is zero, the model returns to Hidalgo's original model but failed to reproduce the S-shaped curve. However, in a plot of data, the data increasingly resembles an the S-shaped curve as the substitutability expands. Therefore, the diversity ceiling effect can be explained by the substitutability of different capabilities.

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Energy, diversity and development in economic systems; an empirical analysis

Cited by 74 publications

References 14 publications

Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective

Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective

Sustainable value assessment of farms using frontier efficiency benchmarks

Capabilities' substitutability and the “S” curve of export diversity

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