Written by international experts in their respective fields, Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity provides a comprehensive overview of global issues of raw materials supply and resource use. It also introduces new views and perspectives on the sustainable growth of emerging economies and develops a rationale for a new resource economics.

This book emphasises why resources are back on the agenda: firstly, because of their fundamental economic role in technological progress and long-term prosperity; secondly, because deficits in raw material markets are now intertwined with deficits in the financial markets; and, thirdly, because the sustainable management of natural resources is a crucial element in responses to new global challenges such as climate change.

Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity analyses raw materials supply and resource use in a global context. The contributions present state-of-the-art results and perspectives on the availability of resources and discuss factors such as limited supply, demand from emerging and other economies and the critical shortage of some materials — particularly some metals — that are essential inputs in many high-tech processes and may put certain industries at risk.

Sustainable Growth and Resource Productivity sheds new light on the economics of sustainable growth. Linking the current financial crisis with stock market pricing and innovation dynamics, it argues for reforms in international macro-economic policies. It also critically discusses the implications of valuing labour productivity over capital and resource productivity and argues that policies favouring capital productivity will increase both social and economic sustainability. Further contributions are made on the business dimensions of material efficiency as well as on policy recommendations.

The book examines the overall empirical trend towards decoupling resource use from economic growth. It undertakes a rigorous cross-country comparison and looks in more detail at the cases of Finland and Greece, as well as at emerging economies and their role in the global governance of natural resources. A key focus is placed on China, with discussion of recent findings regarding Chinese domestic policy on energy, climate and resources as well as on developing Chinese foreign policy in Africa.

The book concludes with the positing of a new theory of resource economics: an emerging sub-discipline that puts resources at its heart but clearly aligns with other fields of economics, and transcends the borderlines of geology, geography, material science, recycling and waste, as well as elements of other social sciences.

This important new book will be essential reading for economic researchers, governmental officials, businesses and NGOs with an interest in understanding the policy links to sustainable growth and in learning more about the emerging field of resource productivity.

I. Raw materials supply and resource use from a global perspective

1. Will the mining industry meet global need for metals?
Magnus Ericsson, Raw Materials Group (RMG), Stockholm, Sweden

2. Global resource use in a business-as-usual world up to 2030: updated results from the GINFORS model
Christian Lutz, Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftliche Strukturforschung (GWS), Osnabrück, Germany, and Stefan Giljum, Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), Vienna, Austria

3. Development and growth in mineral-rich countries
Thorvaldur Gylfason, University of Iceland, CEPR, and CESifo, Iceland

4. The physical dimension of international trade 1962–2005: empirical findings and tentative conclusions
Monika Dittrich, University of Cologne and Wuppertal Institute, Germany

5. Defining critical materials
Thomas E. Graedel, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, USA

II. The economics of resources and sustainable growth

6. Explaining oil price dynamics
Paul J.J. Welfens, European Institute for International Economic Relations, Wuppertal (EIIW) and University of Wuppertal, Germany

7. Technological catch-up or resource rents? A production frontier approach to growth accounting
Natalia Merkina, Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Norway

8. Socio-ecological market economy in Europe: interrelations between resource, labour and capital productivity
Erich Hoedl, European Academy of Science and Arts, Austria

9. Why do companies ignore economic efficiency potentials? The need for public efficiency awareness
Mario Schmidt, Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences, Germany

III. Empirical analysis of resource productivity: trends and drivers

10. Decoupling GDP from resource use, resource productivity and competitiveness: a cross-country comparison
Sören Steger and Raimund Bleischwitz, Wuppertal Institute, Germany

11.  Anxiety and technological change: explaining the decline of sulphur dioxide emissions in Finland since 1950
Jan Kunnas, European University Institute, Italy, and Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Turun yliopisto, Finland

12. Greece’s fossil fuel use in 2006: a production, consumption and supply-chain analysis
Eleni Papathanasopoulou, Sustainable Solutions Greece

IV. Global policy issues

13. China and India’s global demand for resources: drawing some key implications on international energy security and Africa’s development
Jennifer Li, Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability, Falls Church (VA) and US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC

14. Asian energy and environmental policy: promoting growth while preserving the environment
ZhongXiang Zhang, East-West Center, Honolulu, USA

15. The rationale for and economic implications of dematerialisation
Paul Ekins, King’s College, London, UK

Raimund Bleischwitz is Co-director of the Research Group on Material Flows and Resource Management at the Wuppertal Institute. An economist by training (PhD and habilitation), he also holds a professorship at the Department of European Economic Studies at College of Europe, Bruges. His research interests include the socioeconomic analysis of resource management, incentive systems, market evolution, international environmental economics, EU and Japanese policies. He is regularly invited as a speaker to major conferences and seminars both in academic and professional circles. In the academic field, he has led a series of multi-country evaluation and study teams and has been involved in a number of projects at European and international level.

Prof. Dr Paul J.J. Welfens holds the Chair of Macroeconomic Theory and Policy and the Jean Monnet Chair for European Economic Integration at the University of Wuppertal. Prof. Dr Welfens has testified before the US Senate and before the European Parliament; he has also been a consultant to the IMF: recently he held the Alfred Grosser guest professorship at the Science Po. Welfens was also awarded the international Kondratiev medal in silver for his research on Eastern Europe and especially Russia. Also, Prof. Welfens is the president of the European Institute for international Economic Relations (EIIW).

ZhongXiang Zhang is Senior Fellow at the Honolulu-based East-West Center. He also is an adjunct professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Peking University. He is co-editor of the International Journal of Ecological Economics and Statistics, and serves on the editorial boards of eight international journals. He has authored The Economics of Energy Policy in China (Edward Elgar, 1998), International Rules for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading (United Nations, 1998), and another 160 publications. He frequently keynotes major international conferences, served as an expert to many organisations, and is among the most cited authors by the IPCC Climate Change 2001 and 2007.