The paper applies the notion of social well-being to show that “sustainable development” should mean the maintenance of the productive base of an economy relative to its population. It is shown that the concept is operational. Crude data from the world’s poorest countries are used to study...

Greater use of renewable energy is seen as a key component of any move to combat climate change, and is being aggressively promoted as such by the new U.S. administration. Yet there has been little economic analysis of renewable energy. This article surveys the literature on the economics of...