It is argued that mainstream economics, with its present methodological approach, is limited in its ability to analyze and develop adequate public policy to deal with current environmental problems and sustainable development. This book provides an alternative approach. Building on the strengths...

In this paper we test the long term dematerialization potential for Australia in terms of materials, energy, and water use as well as CO2 emissions, by introducing concrete targets for major sectors. Major improvements in the construction and housing, transport and mobility, and food and...

This paper explores the approach of Post Keynesian Economics (PKE) in comparison with ecological economics. While PKE, like all macroeconomics, has failed to address environmental problems it does have many aspects which make compatibility with ecological economics seem feasible. Ecological...

A possible sustainability transition in developing Asia needs to complement the ongoing transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio-ecological regime. As is known from other world regions, an agrarian-industrial transition involves a major increase in material and energy flows...

Economic development goes hand in hand with an increase in the consumption of natural resources. Some analysts use material flows to describe such relationship [Eurostat 2001, Weisz et al., 2006], or exergy [Ayres et al., 2003]. Instead this paper will use a characterisation of the exosomatic...

It is a basic understanding of the current discussion on sustainable development that the high consumption level of non-renewable resources in industrial societies ought to be reduced in absolute figures and that the use of renewable resources should not go beyond the carrying capacities of...

Physical economy research has, thus far, focused on the throughput of materials that underpin economic development. The role of stocks of buildings and infrastructure has remained underexplored, yet it is the physical stock that provides service to society. To fill this gap, this research...

This paper applies the method of 'Land-time-budget analysis' to a rural subsistence community and to the national economy of the Lao PDR. The analysis is conducted to meet two ends: to identify the community's/the nation's resource use profile in terms of land and time use - the analysis...

The successor states of the former Soviet Union present a unique opportunity to study the changes in the socio-metabolic profile of a cohort of nations which underwent a radical and contemporaneous shift in economic system. That change was from being regions within an economically integrated,...