IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v54y2021i1p19-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Putting the Australian Economy on the Scales

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Leigh

Abstract

Based on the increasing size of the service sector, some believe that growth in advanced countries has come without much change in the physical weight of output. To investigate the question, I generate rough estimates of the physical weight of Australian output from 1831 to 2018, using data on the weight of traded goods. These ballpark estimates imply that the weight of annual output increased from around 50,000 tonnes to around 800 million tonnes. Over the long term, a 10 per cent increase in real GDP was associated with a 12 per cent increase in the physical weight of output.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Leigh, 2021. "Putting the Australian Economy on the Scales," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(1), pages 19-35, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:54:y:2021:i:1:p:19-35
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12408
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.12408?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schandl, Heinz & Schulz, Niels, 2002. "Changes in the United Kingdom's natural relations in terms of society's metabolism and land-use from 1850 to the present day," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 203-221, May.
    2. Steve Hatfield-Dodds & Heinz Schandl & Philip D. Adams & Timothy M. Baynes & Thomas S. Brinsmead & Brett A. Bryan & Francis H. S. Chiew & Paul W. Graham & Mike Grundy & Tom Harwood & Rebecca McCallum , 2016. "Australia is 'free to choose' economic growth and falling environmental pressures," Nature, Nature, vol. 534(7607), pages 1-2, June.
    3. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Dematerialization Through Services: Evaluating the Evidence," SocArXiv bw5gm, Center for Open Science.
    4. Cutler J. Cleveland & Matthias Ruth, 1998. "Indicators of Dematerialization and the Materials Intensity of Use," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 2(3), pages 15-50, July.
    5. Kander, Astrid, 2005. "Baumol's disease and dematerialization of the economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 119-130, October.
    6. Ville,Simon & Withers,Glenn (ed.), 2015. "The Cambridge Economic History of Australia," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107029491, January.
    7. Fridolin Krausmann & Simone Gingrich & Reza Nourbakhch‐Sabet, 2011. "The Metabolic Transition in Japan," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 15(6), pages 877-892, December.
    8. Sylvia Gierlinger & Fridolin Krausmann, 2012. "The Physical Economy of the United States of America," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 16(3), pages 365-377, June.
    9. Blair Fix, 2019. "Dematerialization Through Services: Evaluating the Evidence," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 1-17, June.
    10. Pablo Muñoz & Stefan Giljum & Jordi Roca, 2009. "The Raw Material Equivalents of International Trade," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 13(6), pages 881-897, December.
    11. Krausmann, Fridolin & Gaugl, Birgit & West, James & Schandl, Heinz, 2016. "The metabolic transition of a planned economy: Material flows in the USSR and the Russian Federation 1900 to 2010," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 76-85.
    12. Heinz Schandl & Graham M. Turner, 2009. "The Dematerialization Potential of the Australian Economy," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 13(6), pages 863-880, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julia K Steinberger & Fridolin Krausmann & Michael Getzner & Heinz Schandl & Jim West, 2013. "Development and Dematerialization: An International Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-11, October.
    2. Magalhães, Nelo & Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste & Jarrige, François & Le Roux, Thomas & Levillain, Gaëtan & Lyautey, Margot & Noblet, Guillaume & Bonneuil, Christophe, 2019. "The Physical Economy of France (1830–2015). The History of a Parasite?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 291-300.
    3. Yoshida, Keisuke & Fishman, Tomer & Okuoka, Keijiro & Tanikawa, Hiroki, 2017. "Material stock's overburden: Automatic spatial detection and estimation of domestic extraction and hidden material flows," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 165-175.
    4. Marina Fischer-Kowalski & Daniel Hausknost, 2014. "Large-scale Societal Transitions in the Past. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 55," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47187.
    5. West, James & Schandl, Heinz, 2013. "Material use and material efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 19-27.
    6. Kostas Bithas & Panos Kalimeris, 2017. "The Material Intensity of Growth: Implications from the Human Scale of Production," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 1011-1029, September.
    7. Krausmann, Fridolin & Langthaler, Ernst, 2019. "Food regimes and their trade links: A socio-ecological perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 87-95.
    8. Krausmann, Fridolin & Gaugl, Birgit & West, James & Schandl, Heinz, 2016. "The metabolic transition of a planned economy: Material flows in the USSR and the Russian Federation 1900 to 2010," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 76-85.
    9. West, James & Schandl, Heinz & Krausmann, Fridolin & Kovanda, Jan & Hak, Tomas, 2014. "Patterns of change in material use and material efficiency in the successor states of the former Soviet Union," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 211-219.
    10. A. A. Emel’yanov & N. R. Kelchevskaya & K. A. Popova & I. S. Pelymskaya, 2023. "Long-Term Trends in Real Consumption of Copper in the United States," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 34(5), pages 618-626, October.
    11. C. Seri & A. de Juan Fernandez, 2021. "The relationship between economic growth and environment. Testing the EKC hypothesis for Latin American countries," Papers 2105.11405, arXiv.org.
    12. Roberts, Simon H. & Foran, Barney D. & Axon, Colin J. & Stamp, Alice V., 2021. "Is the service industry really low-carbon? Energy, jobs and realistic country GHG emissions reductions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    13. Marco Bianchi & Carlos Tapia & Ikerne del Valle, 2020. "Monitoring domestic material consumption at lower territorial levels: A novel data downscaling method," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(5), pages 1074-1087, October.
    14. Kander, Astrid & Warde, Paul & Teives Henriques, Sofia & Nielsen, Hana & Kulionis, Viktoras & Hagen, Sven, 2017. "International Trade and Energy Intensity During European Industrialization, 1870–1935," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 33-44.
    15. Blair Fix, 2019. "Dematerialization Through Services: Evaluating the Evidence," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 1-17, June.
    16. Dorn, Franziska & Maxand, Simone & Kneib, Thomas, 2024. "The nonlinear dependence of income inequality and carbon emissions: Potentials for a sustainable future," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    17. Tobias Wendler, 2019. "About the Relationship Between Green Technology and Material Usage," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(3), pages 1383-1423, November.
    18. García-García, Pablo & Buendía, Luis & Carpintero, Óscar, 2022. "Welfare regimes as enablers of just energy transitions: Revisiting and testing the hypothesis of synergy for Europe," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    19. Dorothée Charlier & Florian Fizaine, 2020. "Does Becoming Richer Lead to a Reduction in Natural Resource Consumption? An Empirical Refutation of the Kuznets Material Curve," Working Papers 2020.05, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    20. Fishman, Tomer & Schandl, Heinz & Tanikawa, Hiroki, 2015. "The socio-economic drivers of material stock accumulation in Japan's prefectures," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 76-84.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:54:y:2021:i:1:p:19-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.