IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csc/ircrwp/201710.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cosa s’intende per sostenibilità economica? Riflessione sul significato di sistema economicamente sostenibile/What is meant by economic ustainability? Reflection on the definition of today’s concept of sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Giuseppe Cornelli

Abstract

The brief contribution presented in the next pages aims at rigorously defining what is meant for economic sustainability by a theoretical point of view. It is true that many authors in the last decades have discussed in terms of sustainability in the broad sense but at the same time it is true that from a strictly economic point of view today there is no a rigorous definition of sustainability: in fact it’s a common mistake to confuse the economic sustainability with the financial one. The following pages aim to put order in this regard.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuseppe Cornelli, 2017. "Cosa s’intende per sostenibilità economica? Riflessione sul significato di sistema economicamente sostenibile/What is meant by economic ustainability? Reflection on the definition of today’s concept o," IRCrES Working Paper 201710, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    • Handle: RePEc:csc:ircrwp:201710
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ircres.cnr.it/images/wp/wp_10_2017.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avinash Dixit & Peter Hammond & Michael Hoel, 1980. "On Hartwick's Rule for Regular Maximin Paths of Capital Accumulation and Resource Depletion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(3), pages 551-556.
    2. Stavins, Robert N. & Wagner, Alexander F. & Wagner, Gernot, 2003. "Interpreting sustainability in economic terms: dynamic efficiency plus intergenerational equity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 339-343, June.
    3. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1974. "Growth with Exhaustible Natural Resources: The Competitive Economy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 139-152.
    4. Joachim H. Spangenberg, 2005. "Economic sustainability of the economy: concepts and indicators," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(1/2), pages 47-64.
    5. Robert M. Solow, 1974. "The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 12, pages 257-276, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. John Hartwick, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investment of Rents from Exhaustible Resources in a Two Sector Model," Working Paper 281, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    7. Pezzey, John C.V. & Toman, Michael, 2002. "The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles," Discussion Papers 10683, Resources for the Future.
    8. Hartwick, John M, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 972-974, December.
    9. Rene Kemp & Saeed Parto & Robert B. Gibson, 2005. "Governance for sustainable development: moving from theory to practice," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(1/2), pages 12-30.
    10. Arrow, Kenneth & Bolin, Bert & Costanza, Robert & Dasgupta, Partha & Folke, Carl & Holling, C.S. & Jansson, Bengt-Owe & Levin, Simon & Mäler, Karl-Göran & Perrings, Charles & Pimentel, David, 1996. "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 104-110, February.
    11. Solow, Robert M., 1997. "Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow-Stiglitz," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 267-268, September.
    12. Robert B. Gibson, 2006. "Beyond The Pillars: Sustainability Assessment As A Framework For Effective Integration Of Social, Economic And Ecological Considerations In Significant Decision-Making," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 8(03), pages 259-280.
    13. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    14. Joseph Stiglitz, 1974. "Growth with Exhaustible Natural Resources: Efficient and Optimal Growth Paths," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 123-137.
    15. Geir B. Asheim, 1986. "Hartwick's Rule in Open Economies," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 19(3), pages 395-402, August.
    16. Partha Dasgupta & Geoffrey Heal, 1974. "The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 3-28.
    17. Tom Kuhlman & John Farrington, 2010. "What is Sustainability?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(11), pages 1-13, November.
    18. Vaughn, Gerald F., 1997. "Siegfried Von Ciriacy-Wantrup and His Safe Minimum Standard of Conservation," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1-4.
    19. Toman, Michael, 1998. "SPECIAL SECTION: FORUM ON VALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: Why not to calculate the value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 57-60, April.
    20. Richard Howarth & Richard Norgaard, 1993. "Intergenerational transfers and the social discount rate," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(4), pages 337-358, August.
    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. Toman, Michael & Pezzey, John C., 2002. "The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-03, Resources for the Future.
    2. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    3. Fondo Sikod & Gadom Djal-Gadom & et Armand Luc Fotuè Totouom, 2013. "Soutenabilité Economique d'une Ressource Epuisable: Cas du Pétrole Tchadien," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 25(3), pages 344-357, September.
    4. Antony, Jürgen & Klarl, Torben, 2023. "Subsistence consumption and natural resource depletion: Can resource-rich low-income countries realize sustainable consumption paths?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Edward B. Barbier & Joanne C. Burgess, 2021. "Sustainable Use of the Environment, Planetary Boundaries and Market Power," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Asheim, Geir B. & Hartwick, John M. & Mitra, Tapan, 2021. "Investment rules and time invariance under population growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    7. Adrian Boos, 2015. "Genuine Savings as an Indicator for “Weak” Sustainability: Critical Survey and Possible Ways forward in Practical Measuring," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-37, April.
    8. Antony, Jürgen & Klarl, Torben, 2019. "Resource depletion in a Ramsey economy with subsistence consumption, exogenous technical change and capital depreciation: A full characterization," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203640, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Dzhumashev, Ratbek, 2024. "The role of physical constraints on production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    10. Hala Abu-Kalla & Ruslana Rachel Palatnik & Ofira Ayalon & Mordechai Shechter, 2020. "Hoard or Exploit? Intergenerational Allocation of Exhaustible Natural Resources," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-20, December.
    11. Martinet, Vincent & Rotillon, Gilles, 2007. "Invariance in growth theory and sustainable development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2827-2846, August.
    12. Daniele Schilirò, 2019. "Sustainability, Innovation, and Efficiency: A Key Relationship," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, in: Magdalena Ziolo & Bruno S. Sergi (ed.), Financing Sustainable Development, chapter 0, pages 83-102, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Verchère, Alban, 2011. "Le développement durable en question : analyses économiques autour d’un improbable compromis entre acceptions optimiste et pessimiste du rapport de l’Homme à la Nature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 87(3), pages 337-403, septembre.
    14. Mircea Saveanu, 2014. "Sustainability as a Resource Distribution Constraint," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 10(2), pages 139-151, April.
    15. Hart, Rob, 2016. "Non-renewable resources in the long run," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-20.
    16. Martinet, Vincent, 2007. "A step beside the maximin path: Can we sustain the economy by following Hartwick's investment rule?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 103-108, October.
    17. Vincent Martinet, 2007. "Maximizing minimal rights for sustainability: a viability approach," Working Papers hal-04139217, HAL.
    18. Beatrix Gaitan & Terry Roe, 2012. "International Trade, Exhaustible-Resource Abundance and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(1), pages 72-93, January.
    19. Hou, Zheng & Roseta-Palma, Catarina & Ramalho, Joaquim José dos Santos, 2021. "Does directed technological change favor energy? Firm-level evidence from Portugal," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    20. Andre, Francisco J. & Cerda, Emilio, 2005. "On natural resource substitution," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 233-246, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainability; Economic sustainability; Sustainable development; Intergenerational equity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:csc:ircrwp:201710. 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: Anna Perin or Giancarlo Birello (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cerisit.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.