Sustainability: The Economic Bottom Line
Points out that sustainability as such does not provide a clearcut guide to policy. First one has to decide what is to be sustained. If this is agreed, it must be in an operational from. However, difficulties may still emerge since opinions may differ about how to achieve. This is illustrated by differences in the views of economists about how sustainable development is to be achieved. Orthodox economists stress the importance of the accumulation of man-made capital to achieve this end whereas neo-Malthusians stress the importance of conserving natural resource and environmental capital. Both take an anthropocentric point of view. For political reasons the neo-Malthusian has had little support but it may eventually turn out to be correct. Economics is concerned with reducing economic scarcity and economists have traditionally suggested four main ways of doing this of which economic growth is one. However, neo-Malthusian economists believe that this may not be a sustainable strategy – it may result in future poverty. It should be noted that economic systems are embedded in social and natural systems and depend on these. Economic sustainability depends on the sustainability of these other systems. So from this point of view, it is just one of several bottom lines. Values must be considered in relation to sustainability. Economics is completely anthropocentric in its approach. Therefore, economic approaches to conservation and sustainability can be at odds with the values of deep ecologists or those willing to accord rights to other sentient beings or ecosystems independent of human wishes, or those who want to make use of value judgments other than those based on the measuring rod of money. Consequently economics evaluation is sometimes ineffective in resolving social conflict, including conflict about what should be sustained. As a rule economics alone should not be the final arbiter of social decisions. It is a part (often an important part) of the social evaluation process but not the bottom line, or just one of many lines.
Asia's Livestock Industries: Changes and Environmental Consequences
Asia’s livestock populations and production of edible livestock have risen substantially in recent years. Asia has increased its global share of livestock and livestock products. Furthermore, it has greatly increased its involvement in world trade in edible livestock products, e.g., exports of poultry meat and pig meat and imports of bovine meat and milk products. This article highlights these changes focussing on China, considers the reasons for these and their possible consequences for the environment. Future possible threats to Asia’s export of livestock products are also discussed, such as environmental and animal welfare concerns.
Complexity, Network-Decisions And Alternative Risk Premia: Some New Theories Of Structural Change And Portfolio Decisions.
Structural Change is the basis for many decisions such as government fiscal and monetary policies, government interventions, corporate-expenditure decisions, corporate strategic decisions, portfolio management decisions in finance; household allocation decisions, etc.. Structural change in industries and national economies is increasingly more difficult to detect partly because of the growth and dominance of Complex Systems and “Networks” in modern industries and economies – such Networks and Complex Systems include GVCs (global value chains), retail store networks; franchising networks; internet networks; services networks; credit-chains in industries; online social networks; etc.. The relationship between Complexity and Structural Change is well established in the physics, applied math and economic dynamics literatures. Traditional definitions and modeling of structural change have erroneously focused on changes in labor, technological progress, market share, and or capital – which are grossly inadequate in the new economy and post- global financial crisis (as confirmed by changes in the global retailing and housing industries and other industries). Also the modeling of structural change seems to be constrained by the availability of data, and often omits the relationship between structural change on one hand, and globalization, financial stability and international financial contagion. This article: i) introduces the Operations Strategy Model of structural change, explains how it differs from the Lewis Model of Structural Change; and explains the often omitted relationship between operations strategy (of companies and government agencies) and structural change; ii) introduces other new Complexity-based models/theories of Structural Change in industries; iii) reviews the relationships among Operations Research, Complexity and Structural Change; iv) explains the symbiotic relationship between structural change on one hand, and economic growth, financial stability, financial contagion and globalization; v) discusses the significant gap between academic research and practice and explains some issues and factors that should be considered in the development and testing of structural change models; vi) explains how alternative risk premia can be generated from new models of Structural Change.