IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/matsoc/v75y2015icp87-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy, complexity and sustainable long-term growth

Author

Listed:
  • Fagnart, Jean-François
  • Germain, Marc

Abstract

We introduce the concept of product complexity in an endogenous growth model with renewable energy and expanding product variety à la Grossman and Helpman (1991). We describe the complexity of a product as an increasing function of the variety of inputs it consists of. Considering that energy is necessary to all human activities (including research), we highlight what type of long run growth path is possible according to (a) the potential of energy efficiency gains in the various human activities and (b) the effect of the product complexity on the energy intensiveness of its production process. In a finite world, a neoclassical growth path where economic growth can be both quantitative and non-quantitative (i.e. takes the form of an increase in the quantity of produced goods and in the product variety) is only possible if the potential of energy efficiency gains is unbounded in all human activities. If the energy intensiveness of the final production is bounded from below by a strictly positive constant, quantitative growth is not possible in the long run but non-quantitative growth may persist if (i) the impact of product complexity on the energy intensiveness of production is null or weak enough and (ii) the energy intensiveness of research activities tends to zero. If these conditions are not met, no form of long run growth is possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Fagnart, Jean-François & Germain, Marc, 2015. "Energy, complexity and sustainable long-term growth," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 87-93.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:matsoc:v:75:y:2015:i:c:p:87-93
    DOI: 10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2015.02.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165489615000141
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.mathsocsci.2015.02.002?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fagnart, Jean-François & Germain, Marc, 2011. "Quantitative versus qualitative growth with recyclable resource," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 929-941, March.
    2. J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (ed.), 2009. "Handbook of Research on Complexity," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3625.
    3. Sharon Novak & Steven D. Eppinger, 2001. "Sourcing By Design: Product Complexity and the Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 189-204, January.
    4. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard H. Day, 2009. "On Simplicity and Macroeconomic Complexity," Chapters, in: J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (ed.), Handbook of Research on Complexity, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Ayres, Robert U. & Miller, Steven M., 1980. "The role of technological change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 353-371, December.
    7. Luis Garicano, 2000. "Hierarchies and the Organization of Knowledge in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 874-904, October.
    8. Marc Germain, 2012. "Equilibres et effondrement dans le cadre d'un cycle naturel," Working Papers hal-00989886, HAL.
    9. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    10. Benassy, Jean-Pascal, 1996. "Taste for variety and optimum production patterns in monopolistic competition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 41-47, July.
    11. Robert U. Ayres & Benjamin Warr, 2009. "The Economic Growth Engine," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13324.
    12. Marc Germain, 2012. "Equilibres et effondrement dans le cadre d'un cycle naturel," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 55(4), pages 427-455.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Germain, Marc, 2019. "Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow/Stiglitz: Back to a controversy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 168-182.
    2. Richard Heinberg & Timothy Crownshaw, 2018. "Energy Decline and Authoritarianism," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-11, September.

    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. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    2. Jean-François Fagnart & Marc Germain & Benjamin Peeters, 2020. "Can the Energy Transition Be Smooth? A General Equilibrium Approach to the EROEI," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, February.
    3. Benjamin F. Jones, 2008. "The Knowledge Trap: Human Capital and Development Reconsidered," NBER Working Papers 14138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kuhn, Moritz & Luo, Jinfeng & Manovskii, Iourii & Qiu, Xincheng, 2023. "Coordinated firm-level work processes and macroeconomic resilience," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 107-127.
    5. Maria Molina-Domene, 2018. "Specialization matters in the firm size-wage gap," CEP Discussion Papers dp1545, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Kikuchi, Tomoo & Nishimura, Kazuo & Stachurski, John & Zhang, Junnan, 2021. "Coase meets Bellman: Dynamic programming for production networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    7. Benjamin F. Jones, 2014. "The Human Capital Stock: A Generalized Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(11), pages 3752-3777, November.
    8. Molina-Domene, Maria, 2018. "Specialization matters in the firm size-wage gap," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88696, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Freund, L. B., 2022. "Superstar Teams: The Micro Origins and Macro Implications of Coworker Complementarities," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2276, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. Kikuchi, Tomoo & Nishimura, Kazuo & Stachurski, John, 2018. "Span of control, transaction costs and the structure of production chains," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    11. Luis Garicano & Yanhui Wu, 2012. "Knowledge, Communication, and Organizational Capabilities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1382-1397, October.
    12. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman & Eugenio Proto, 2014. "Smithian Growth through Creative Organization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 796-811, December.
    13. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    14. Steven N. Durlauf & Ananth Seshadri, 2003. "Is assortative matching efficient?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 21(2), pages 475-493, March.
    15. Krishna, Pravin & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2013. "Comparative advantage, complexity, and volatility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 314-329.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4cufqrm9749dbol0m0bsfeopka is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Philippe Aghion & Antonin Bergeaud & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith, 2019. "The Innovation Premium to Soft Skills in Low-Skilled Occupations," Working papers 739, Banque de France.
    18. Galashin Mikhail & Popov Sergey V., 2016. "Teamwork Efficiency and Company Size," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 337-366, January.
    19. Uchida, Hirofumi & Udell, Gregory F. & Yamori, Nobuyoshi, 2012. "Loan officers and relationship lending to SMEs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 97-122.
    20. Klockmann, Victor & von Schenk, Alicia & von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2021. "Division of labor and the organization of knowledge in production: A laboratory experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 196-210.
    21. Paul Walker, 2010. "The (Non)Theory Of The Knowledge Firm," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(1), pages 1-32, February.

    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:eee:matsoc:v:75:y:2015:i:c:p:87-93. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505565 .

    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.