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consumption in industrialized nations today is far higher than it was 100 years ago,
and some would argue that this is irresponsible in the light of its implications for
resource demands. In the last 100 years, energy use has increased by a factor of 16,
annual fish harvesting by a multiple of 35 and carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions
by a factor of 10. The application of nitrogen to the terrestrial environment from
human use of fertilizers, fossil fuels and leguminous crops is now at least as great as
that from all natural sources combined (McNeill, 2000). If we look at specific
resources and services, such as fresh water, the atmosphere as a carbon sink, and a
wide variety of ecosystem services, evidence suggests that continuing growth in their
utilization rates is unsustainable (Vitousek, Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Matson, 1986,
1997; Postel, Daily and Ehrlich, 1996).
On the other hand, it may be claimed that, just as earlier generations invested
in capital goods, research and education to bequeath to current generations the
ability to achieve high levels of consumption, current generations are making the
investments that are necessary to assure higher real living standards in the future,
despite stresses on the natural resource base. Indeed, historical trends in the prices
of marketed natural resources and the recorded growth in conventional indices of
economic progress in currently rich countries suggest resource scarcities have not
bitten as yet (Barnett and Morse, 1963; Johnson, 2000). This optimistic viewpoint
emphasizes the potential of capital accumulation in the form of increased manu-
factured capital and human capital, as well as technological change, to compensate
for the diminishment of natural resources.
This paper, the outgrowth of discussions among a group of ecologists and
economists, offers an analysis that we hope will go some way toward reconciling the
conflicting intuitions. The binocular vision that can be obtained from using both
ecological and economic insights raises questions that might not occur in either
viewpoint alone.
By what criterion should we judge whether consumption is or is not excessive?
Economic analysis has tended to emphasize the criterion of maximizing the present
discounted value of current and future utility from consumption—what we will call
intertemporal social welfare. Current consumption is deemed excessive or deficient
depending on its level relative to that called for by this optimization problem.
However, analysts with a different perspective have applied a criterion of sustain-
ability, which emphasizes the ability of the economy to maintain living standards. In
this paper, we will examine these criteria for evaluating whether consumption is
excessive and identify factors in the economic and ecological domains that deter-
mine whether or not it is in fact so.
the flow of utility from consumption from the present to infinity, discounted using
the constant rate ␦ (⬎ 0).1 In focusing at each moment on aggregate consumption,
our framework abstracts from intratemporal equity issues. The equity issues that
preoccupy us are intertemporal.
One of the determinants of V t is the “productive base,” which consists of
society’s capital assets and institutions at t. The capital assets include manufactured
capital, human capital and natural capital. The productive base also includes the
knowledge base and society’s institutions. Although institutions are frequently
regarded to be capital assets themselves, we will instead view institutions as guiding
the allocation of resources—including capital assets. Institutions include the legal
structure, formal and informal markets, various agencies of government, interper-
sonal networks and the rules and norms that guide their behavior. In what follows,
we will generally employ the term “technology” to refer to both the knowledge base
and the institutions that influence, among other things, the effectiveness with
which this knowledge is put to use. We now discuss two criteria for judging whether
or not current consumption is excessive.
1
Let s and t variously denote time (where s ⱖ t). Let C(s) denote a society’s aggregate consumption
and U(C(s)) the flow of utility at time s. Marginal utility is assumed to be positive. Let V t denote
intertemporal social welfare at time t, defined as the present discounted value of the flow of U(C(s))
from t to infinity, discounted using the constant rate ␦ (⬎ 0). Assuming continuous time, we have
V共t兲 ⫽ 冕s⫽t
⬁
U 关C共s兲兴e ⫺␦ 共s⫺t兲 ds.
In calling U “utility,” we are not necessarily subscribing to classical utilitarianism. We are assuming, more
generally, that consumption has a social worth, which we call utility U(C ), and that V t is a numerical
representation of an ethical ordering over infinite utility streams beginning at t. Koopmans (1972) has
identified conditions on orderings that permit one to express V t in the form we are using here.
150 Journal of Economic Perspectives
of people today. Koopmans (1960), however, showed that applying a zero social
rate of pure time preference can lead to paradoxes. Lind (1982) and Portney and
Weyant (1999) contain diverse arguments concerning the appropriate choice of ␦.
One interesting aspect of the optimal consumption path according to the
maximize present value criterion is that it can be linked, theoretically, to the
outcome of a decentralized market economy. In a fully competitive economy with
a complete set of futures markets and no externalities, and in which individuals
discount their future utility at the social rate ␦, the time path of consumption will
correspond to the optimal consumption path. Conversely, in a world where markets
for many future goods and many types of risk bearing do not exist and where
environmental externalities prevail, consumption generally will not be optimal.
Nevertheless, it is possible to conduct social cost-benefit analysis to judge whether
a policy reform at t increases intertemporal social welfare (Dasgupta, 2001a; Arrow,
Dasgupta and Mäler, 2003b).
2
Let Kt denote the vector of stocks of all capital assets at t. Plainly, V is a function of Kt. In the particular
case where V is stationary (that is, where t itself does not directly influence V ), we can write V t ⫽ V(Kt).
Let K it denote the stock of the i th capital good at date t. By the chain rule of differentiation,
dV/dt ⫽ 冘i
共⭸V/⭸K it 兲共dK it /dt兲 ⫽ 冘
i
p itI it,
where p it (⬅⭸V/⭸K it ) is the shadow price or accounting price of K it , and I it (⬅dK it /dt) denotes the
rate of change in K it . The right-hand side of the expression above is genuine investment.
It is frequently convenient to divide the expression for dV/dt by the value of some one kind of capital
(valued at its shadow price). Thus, if there are just two kinds of capital, denoted, say, by K 1 and K 2 ,
respectively, genuine investment measured relative to the first kind of capital is
This indicates that our sustainability criterion can be expressed as the growth rate of one kind of capital
plus the product of the growth rate of the other kind of capital and an adjustment factor. Note that, from
the definition of shadow prices above, the adjustment factor is the elasticity of K 1 with respect to K 2
along an isoquant of V(K 1 , K 2 ). We apply this expression in a later section, where we extend the
expression for dV/dt to account for technological change.
3
This result was proved for optimally managed economies by Pearce and Atkinson (1995) and for
arbitrary economies by Dasgupta and Mäler (2000).
152 Journal of Economic Perspectives
may be direct as, say, objects of natural beauty; or they may be indirect, as in the
contributions of ecosystem services such as water purification, flood control, cli-
mate stabilization, pollination of crops, control of agricultural pests and the gen-
eration and maintenance of soil fertility (Daily, 1997); or they may be both (a
wetland). Measuring these services is no easy task.
Another great challenge is determining how much more of one type of capital
asset would be needed to compensate for the loss of one unit of another type of
capital asset. Ecologists express concerns that natural resources have only a limited
set of substitutes. They fear that to the extent that economists are overly optimistic
about opportunities to substitute other capital assets for certain natural resources,
reductions in their stocks would then receive too little weight. A major goal of
ecological economics is to increase our understanding of the ways in which differ-
ent kinds of natural capital contribute to human well-being and the extent to which
they are substitutable for one another and for other kinds of capital assets.4
4
On substitutability, see, for example, Dasgupta and Heal (1979, chapter 7), Ehrlich and Ehrlich
(1990), Daily (1997), Daily et al. (2001), Levin (2001), Heal et al. (2001), and Heal (2003). An
important complication related to assessing substitution possibilities is that the potential for substitution
can vary by location. A natural resource in one place, like a local woodland, is not the same economic
commodity as the same natural resource in another place. Dasgupta (1993) discusses the implications
of local nonsubstitutability for the world’s poorest people, who often have no substitutes available to
them when their local resource base is degraded. For an interchange on the relative importance of
substitution possibilities at aggregate and local levels, see Johnson (2001) and Dasgupta (2001b).
Kenneth Arrow et al. 153
5
The formula for V in this case is
V共t兲 ⫽ 冕 t
⬁
N共s兲U共c共s兲兲e ⫺␦共s⫺t兲ds
冒冕
t
⬁
N共s兲e ⫺␦共s⫺t兲ds,
where c(s) and N(s) represent per capita consumption and population size, respectively, at time s.
Notice that, to the extent that the denominator of the above form of V t is not affected by policy, the
maximize present value criterion implies the same optimum no matter whether “total” or “dynamic
average” utilitarianism is adopted as the conception of intertemporal social welfare. However, it matters
hugely whether “total” or “dynamic average” utilitarianism is adopted when one is applying the
sustainability criterion. For further analysis of sustainability under changing population size, see Arrow,
Dasgupta and Mäler (2003a).
6
K can also be regarded as a measure of genuine wealth prior to the adjustment in such wealth to
account for technological change.
7
Assume that K(t), the productive base, is a constant (⫽ K 0 ) and that consumption ⫽ output ⫽ A 0 K 0␣ e rt
for all t. From the definition of V in footnote 2, V is constant when A 0 K 0␣ is constant. Thus, the elasticity
of A 0 (total factor productivity) with respect to K 0 along an isoquant of V is ␣⫺1. In the second equation
154 Journal of Economic Perspectives
in footnote 2, substitute the productive base K for what was termed K 1 and total factor productivity A 0
for what was termed K 2 . Since (1/A)(dA/dt) ⫽ ␥ , it follows from this equation that the sustainability
criterion (expressed in terms of K ) is the rate of growth of K plus ␥/␣.
8
In an appendix to this paper available at 具http://www.stanford.edu/⬃goulder典, we derive a formula for
correcting the bias in estimating the rate of growth of total productivity induced by the omission of
resources.
Are We Consuming Too Much? 155
The Market Rate of Return on Investment and the Social Rate of Interest on
Consumption
For a consumption path in a market economy to be socially optimal, the
market rate of return on investment, i, must be equal to the social rate of interest
on consumption, denoted by r. If i exceeds r, markets are biased toward insufficient
saving and excessive current consumption.
It can be shown that, if intertemporal social welfare is given by the form of V
we have postulated here, the social rate of interest on consumption r is given by the
relation r ⫽ ␦ ⫹ g, where ␦ is the social rate of pure time preference, is the
elasticity of marginal (social) utility, and g is the rate of growth in aggregate
consumption.9 The parameter ␦ reflects impatience, as is well known. The second
term in the equation, times g, may require explanation. One can view as
accounting for the fact that, to the extent that future generations have higher
incomes, their consumption will be higher and the marginal utility of their con-
sumption will be lower. However, need not simply reflect diminishing marginal
utility of consumption to an individual: it can be interpreted as a social preference
for equality of consumption among generations. Thus, its function can be similar
to the social rate of pure time preference, ␦.
Does i exceed r? One might argue that this cannot be answered from empirical
observation alone, on the grounds that the choices of ␦ and are inherently value
judgments—subjective matters. However, there exists a different approach that
offers a link to empirical behavior. This approach asserts that a “typical” individual’s
preferences should guide our choices of ␦ and . In particular, it identifies the
9
For one derivation, see Arrow and Kurz (1970). For additional discussion, see Arrow et al. (1996).
156 Journal of Economic Perspectives
social rate of pure time preference, ␦, with the utility discount rate that a typical
individual would endorse. The assumptions of this approach are clearly subject to
debate, but it seems worthwhile to consider what they imply for the relationship
between i and r and thus for the level of consumption.
Several considerations suggest that the typical individual’s preferences regard-
ing the utility discount rate will not be reflected in the market.10 One reason is that,
because of externalities, the utility discount rate that most people would endorse as
socially conscious beings is lower than the rate of time preference emanating from
market transactions. Many years ago, Ramsey, Pigou and Harrod insisted that the
only ethically justifiable value for ␦ is zero. Solow (1974, p. 9) put the matter thus:
“In solemn conclave assembled, so to speak, we ought to act as if the social rate of
(pure) time preference were zero.” A less extreme view would be to say that even
if we don’t treat ␦ as zero, individuals do derive a positive externality (outside of the
marketplace) from the welfare of future generations. An argument combining the
market rate of return on investment with the externality of caring about future
generations might call for “low” values of ␦, in the range, say, of 0 – 0.5 percent per
annum.
What about the other term— g—in the expression for r? If we again base our
choices on a typical individual’s preferences, then should reflect an average
person’s elasticity of marginal utility of consumption. The value of is linked to ,
the intertemporal elasticity of substitution in consumption: ⫽ ⫺( ⫺ 1)/. Hall’s
(1988) time series estimates of suggest that plausible values for might lie in the
range of 2– 4. If we assume per capita growth rates in consumption ( g) to have been
of the order of 1.5 percent per annum, we arrive at 3 to 6 percent per annum for the
term g. Together, these considerations would tentatively suggest a value for r in
the range 3.0 – 6.5 percent per annum.
How does this value compare with the market rate of return on investment i?
We need to choose an appropriate market interest rate with which to make the
comparison, but rates of return on different securities vary considerably. The real
rate of return on private capital in the United States (as directed for use in
government project analysis, United States Office of Management and Budget,
1992) is 7.0 percent; on equities from 1970 –2000, 7.4 percent; but on Treasury bills
from 1970 –2000, just 1.6 percent. (The last two figures are derived by computation
from the Wharton-Data Resources website.) We want to compare the social rate of
interest on consumption r with a risk-free rate. If one interprets Treasury bills as the
risk-free asset, then the market rate seems as low or lower than the value for r we
10
Hence, the justification for a “lower” ␦ may remain, despite the fact that equilibrium outcomes from
individuals’ market behavior at first blush suggests a higher ␦. On this, see Marglin (1963), Lind (1964)
and Sen (1967). In discussing this issue, we have just referred to an externality related to individuals’
concerns for future generations’ well-being. Elsewhere in this paper, we refer to externalities associated
with the use of natural resources. One could interpret individuals’ inefficient (excessively rapid)
exploitation of natural resources as evidence that they care little about future welfare. However, we
prefer the interpretation that such externalities make it impossible for individuals to express their
concerns about the future in their individual production or consumption decisions.
Kenneth Arrow et al. 157
calculated above. Thus, this rough comparison provides little support for the
argument that consumption is excessive.
Two other pieces of evidence that market rates of return on investment may
exceed the social rate of interest on consumption come from the incompleteness
of markets and the existence of capital taxes. The absence of a complete set of
risk-bearing markets, for example, implies that risks cannot be pooled perfectly.
Returns from investment are therefore more uncertain, and so recipients (savers)
would be expected to attach a lower value to investments than they would have if
risks had been pooled more effectively. Consequently, the rate of saving is lower.
The absence of complete pooling tends to promote excessive consumption.
Similarly, the taxation of capital income lowers the private return on capital
below the social return and thus discourages saving and promotes excessive con-
sumption. However, the normative impacts of capital income taxation depend on
other taxes and the prices of various inputs to consumption goods. Labor taxes can
discourage labor supply and reduce wage incomes, thus causing current consump-
tion to fall short of the optimal level despite the influence of capital taxes.
Moreover, the level of current consumption depends importantly on the prices of
the inputs used to produce consumption goods. The pricing of natural resource
inputs seems especially important, as we discuss in the following section.
Interdependence in Consumption
Interdependence in consumption can also lead to prices of consumption
below social cost. Building on Veblen (1899) and Duesenberry (1949), a small but
growing body of empirical work (for example, Frank, 1985a, b; Ng, 1987; Howarth,
1996; Schor, 1998) suggests that a person’s sense of well-being is based not only on
a person’s own consumption, but also on the person’s consumption relative to a
“reference group.” When others’ consumption rises in comparison, an individual
could suffer from a loss of well-being because that person’s relative consumption
now falls. This interdependence in consumption can be viewed as an externality,
which can compel individuals to work harder and consume more to keep up with
neighbors. It is individually rational behavior, but collectively suboptimal. A formal
“growth model” incorporating these ideas has been developed by Cooper, Garcia-
Peñalosa and Funk (2001).
However, interdependence in consumption does not necessarily imply that
people consume excessively. Suppose that the “relative consumption effect” applies
not only to current consumption, but also to future consumption (and to leisure,
Are We Consuming Too Much? 159
including sleep). Working harder and consuming more today would then improve
one’s relative current consumption, but worsen one’s relative current “consump-
tion” of leisure and also one’s relative future consumption! Thus, the bias from
interdependence depends on the strength of the effects along various margins. If
the effect on individual well-being of relative consumption is symmetric, operating
equally on relative consumption and relative leisure now and in the future, it may
have no impact on current behavior relative to what would occur if this effect were
absent. In this case, the relative consumption effect operates like a lump-sum tax,
reducing a person’s sense of well-being without changing that person’s allocation
of labor resources or income.
General Findings
We have identified several factors influencing consumption and have shown
how they enable us to judge whether consumption is excessive according to the
maximize present value criterion. Several factors—the inability to pool risks per-
fectly, the taxation of capital income and the underpricing of natural resources—
contribute toward excessive consumption. (Below, we will observe that these same
factors also work toward excessive consumption according to the sustainability
criterion.) Among these imperfections, the underpricing of natural resources
strikes us as the most transparent.
11
Hamilton and Clemens (1999) employ the term “genuine domestic saving,” which we treat as
synonymous with genuine investment. The two cannot be distinguished from the data employed in their
study, because the data do not include international capital flows.
12
In calculating the reduction in natural resource stocks, Hamilton and Clemens do not include
discoveries of new reserves as an offsetting element. As an accounting matter this seems correct. It is
consistent with the notion that the overall global stock of mineral or fuel resources is given—that
devoting resources toward exploration, and the subsequent discovery of previously unknown reserves,
does not constitute an enlargement of the stock. At the same time, expenditure on exploration
equipment or structures should constitute a positive investment in physical capital.
Kenneth Arrow et al. 161
Table 1
Genuine Investment and Components as Percentage of GDP
Domestic net Education Damage from Energy Mineral Net forest Genuine
Country investment expenditure CO2 emissions depletion depletion depletion investment
13
For a more extensive discussion of ways in which genuine investment could be better estimated, see
Arrow, Dasgupta and Mäler (2003b).
162 Journal of Economic Perspectives
lated simply as the estimated damage associated with annual emissions of carbon
dioxide. A ton of carbon dioxide emission is assumed to lead to a loss of $20 (U.S.)
of environmental capital. However, to the extent that newly manufactured capital
is expected to yield increased carbon dioxide emissions and thereby inflict
subsequent damage, the value of investment in manufactured capital is reduced.14
The Hamilton-Clemens approach adopted here ignores this effect. A further
problem is that this approach implicitly links all of the damage from carbon dioxide
emissions to the country responsible for the emissions, whereas in fact a given
country’s emissions of carbon dioxide produce climate impacts worldwide.
Set against these considerations is another issue that is ambiguous in its effect.
The proxy for increases in human capital— expenditure on education—neglects
depreciation of human capital due to morbidity, mortality and retirement from the
workforce. In this respect, it overstates the increase in human capital. On the other
hand, this proxy ignores skills gained through channels other than formal educa-
tion, as well as improvements in human productivity that are due to expenditures
on health and nutrition. This implies the opposite bias.
While the measure of genuine investment in Table 1 conveys useful informa-
tion, it does not consider changes in population or technology. If population grows
fast enough, the long-run productive base per person could decline even if genuine
investment were positive. On the other hand, accounting for improvements in
productivity would likely brighten the picture. In what follows, we extend our
empirical assessment to consider the impacts of population growth and changes in
total factor productivity.
14
This does not double count. In today’s genuine investment calculation, today’s emissions of CO2
constitute a reduction in “climate-system capital.” This negative investment is the present value of the
damages associated with these current emissions. At the same time, the value of today’s investments in
manufactured capital should be the present value of the net services associated with these manufactured
assets. Future emissions and climate damages associated with these assets reduce these net service
streams and imply a reduction in the value of current investment in these assets.
Are We Consuming Too Much? 163
Table 2
Growth Rates of Per Capita Genuine Wealth
Note: These calculations employ the following parameters: output-capital ratio, poor countries/regions
0.15; output-capital ratio, rich countries 0.20; ␣ (share of human and reproducible capital in output)
0.58.
Data for genuine investment, population growth, and GDP growth derive from the World Bank (2003).
The genuine investment percentages of GDP derive from data over the time-intervals indicated in Table
1. The population growth rate is the average rate over the period 1970 –2000.
The estimate for China’s total factor productivity (TFP) growth is from Collins and Bosworth (1996). For
all other countries or regions, the estimates are from Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare (1997).
(column 4) by subtracting the population growth rate (column 3) from the growth
rate of genuine wealth.
Column 4’s figures for changes in per capita genuine wealth do not account
for technological change. The remaining adjustments in the table are intended to
account for such change as measured through changes in total factor productivity.
Column 5 offers estimates of the growth of the total factor productivity residual, as
reported for the period 1970 –2000 in Klenow and Rodrı́guez-Clare (1997).15 For
the Middle East/North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa regions, we obtain the
residual by taking a weighted average of the estimates for the countries within each
region, using GDP as weights. In the case of China, we report estimates from Collins
and Bosworth (1996) for a comparable period, since Klenow and Rodrı́guez-Clare
did not offer estimates for this country. The residual was negative only in the
Middle East/North Africa region.
We use the numbers in column 5 to arrive at an estimate of the change in per
capita genuine wealth that accounts for the impact of projected technological
15
Klenow and Rodrı́guez-Clare report the growth rates of a transform of total factor productivity. From
this information we calculate the associated growth rate of total productivity.
164 Journal of Economic Perspectives
growth and technological change, differ significantly from the original genuine
investment calculations.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal show positive values for the growth rate
of W. However, estimated growth rates for per capita genuine wealth are projected
to be negative in the Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East/North Africa regions. At
an annual rate of decline of 2.6 percent in genuine wealth per annum, the average
person in the sub-Saharan Africa region becomes poorer by a factor of two about
every 25 years. The ills of sub-Saharan Africa are routine reading in today’s
newspapers and magazines. But they are not depicted in terms of a decline in
wealth.
In the Middle East/North Africa region, per capita genuine wealth is
estimated to be declining at an annual rate of 3.8 percent, after adjusting for
technological change. For this region, the estimate for the growth rate in total
factor productivity is negative (⫺0.23 percent). Hence, adjusting for techno-
logical change for this region further increases the estimated decline of per
capita genuine wealth. It is worth noting that the negative estimate for total
factor productivity growth depends closely on the value one attaches to ex-
tracted energy resources. Alternative assumptions about future energy prices
can significantly influence this valuation and the estimate of total factor pro-
ductivity. Thus, the uncertainties in the estimates are especially great in the case
of the Middle East/North Africa region.
The results for China are strikingly different from those just discussed. The
unadjusted growth rate of per capita genuine wealth is significantly positive—about
2.1 percent. The estimated growth rate of total factor productivity (3.6 percent) is
high compared with the other countries examined, helping to augment the growth
rate of W. However, China’s figure could be biased upward: the estimates of
genuine investment do not include soil erosion or urban pollution, both of which
are thought by experts to be especially problematic in China.
How do changes in wealth per head compare with changes in conventional
measures of economic progress? The far-right column of Table 2 contains estimates
of the rate of change of GDP per head over the interval 1970 –2000. In all of the
listed countries except for China, the growth rate of per capita GDP is considerably
higher than the estimated growth rate of per capita genuine wealth. In the Middle
East/North Africa Region, per capita GDP growth is positive, while per capita
genuine wealth is falling. For all of these countries except China, an assessment of
long-term economic development would be significantly off the mark if it were to
look at growth rates in GDP per head.
One might infer from the table that several poor countries are “consum-
ing too much.” Such a conclusion would be off the mark. In many poor
nations, the production of both capital goods and consumption goods is
highly inefficient. The countries simultaneously suffer from low levels of
genuine investment and consumption, and in the most important sense of
the term, these nations do not overconsume. One cannot assure a satisfac-
tory quality of life in these nations simply by devoting a larger share of
166 Journal of Economic Perspectives
Table 3
Sensitivity Analysis
genuine wealth. Results seem fairly sensitive to this parameter. When the output-
wealth ratio is 0.10, the estimated growth of W becomes negative in Bangladesh,
India, Nepal and the United States.
In the light of the sensitivity of these results to this parameter—as well as
significant uncertainties about the underlying data and other parameters that
enter these calculations— our conclusions must be very tentative. But despite
the uncertainties, it seems clear that measures of changes in per capita genuine
wealth yield a very different—and often much bleaker—picture of the prospects
for poor nations, as compared with the message implied by changes in GDP per
capita.
living standard for the present generation, and current investment does not assure
a higher (or even the same) standard for future generations.
This study and all previous studies of which we are aware provide only point
estimates of genuine investment or of changes in genuine wealth. Given the vast
uncertainties associated with the estimates, even when point estimates are positive,
there may remain a significant possibility that genuine investment is negative. The
uncertainties justify added caution.
The presence of nonlinearities compounds the importance of uncertainty.
The biophysical impacts associated with the loss of natural capital can be highly
nonlinear: these impacts may be small over a considerable range, and then
become immense once a critical threshold is reached. Crossing the threshold
leads to a “bifurcation,” a situation where the characteristics of the natural
system change fundamentally. For example, shallow clear fresh water lakes can
absorb a low level of phosphorus with little ill effect. However, if more phos-
phorus is added to the lake through sewage or runoff from agricultural land,
more algae grows in the water, less sunlight will reach the bottom, and the green
plants on the bottom will disappear. As a consequence, the bottom sediments,
which contain phosphorus from dead algae, will be less stable, and phosphorous
will be released from the bottom. More discharge of phosphorus from outside
will trigger even more phosphorus from the bottom. This positive feedback will
eventually force the lake to flip or “bifurcate” from clear to turbid water. Recent
work by ecologists and environmental economists has investigated these dynam-
ics and shown that such flips can occur over as short a period as a month
(Scheffer, 1998; Carpenter, Ludwig and Brock, 1999; Brock and Starrett, 2003).
Another possible bifurcation arises in certain climate models that indicate that
a rise in greenhouse gases might reverse the direction of the Atlantic stream
that now warms northern Europe. Paleo-climatic history shows that such rever-
sals have been common.16
Nonlinearities in ecosystem dynamics imply the presence of serious downside
risks related to the losses of natural capital. Central estimates of the shadow prices
for natural capital are likely to be too low if one only considers central cases rather
than the entire distribution of potential outcomes from losses of natural capital.
Thus, the expected values of genuine investment or of changes in per capita
genuine wealth might well be lower than the values emerging when one employs
only central values for parameters. Accounting for risk-aversion could lower these
estimates even further.
While there may be uncertainty about whether various countries are meeting
the sustainability criterion, the need for vigorous public policies to support more
efficient consumption and investment choices is unambiguous. Through regula-
tion, taxes or the establishment of clearer or more secure property rights, public
policy can help prices of natural and environmental resources better approximate
16
Mastrandrea and Schneider (2001) have employed a climate-economy model to investigate the
possibility of reversals and to assess the implications for climate policy.
Kenneth Arrow et al. 169
their social cost. These policies can help prevent excessive resource depletion and
promote higher genuine investment. Such policies are justified on efficiency
grounds whether or not genuine investment currently is positive.17 Although the
implementation of public policies that satisfy a benefit-cost test does not in theory
guarantee sustainability, such policies do not necessarily conflict with sustainability,
either. Indeed, our sense is that policies of this sort— especially those that deal with
underpricing of natural resources or environmental amenities—will improve mat-
ters along the sustainability dimension. When one views desertification in China,
water contamination in Senegal and forest depletion in Haiti, it is hard to imagine
that the establishment of property rights or improved pricing of natural resources
could worsen the prospects of future generations.
Beyond policy action, further research is needed to identify the areas where
current consumption poses a threat to sustainability and to quantify the potential
losses. We need to develop better data quantifying the losses of natural capital and
the potential for substitution between various forms of capital.
Further, to complement the rather simple analytical calculations of changes in
genuine wealth, we need to make more use of disaggregated numerical growth
models. Such models can contain considerable detail in the interaction of various
forms of capital and the services they generate. Current estimates of genuine wealth
depend crucially on the values assigned to shadow prices, yet the empirical basis for
these prices is very weak. Numerical growth models can be used to project growth
paths of economies and the sensitivity of these paths to changes in capital stocks. In
this way, they can generate much better assessments of the critical shadow prices.
Additional information of this kind will help reduce uncertainties about changes in
genuine wealth and clarify the extent to which current consumption levels might
imperil the quality of life of future generations.
y We are grateful to Geir Asheim, Jack Pezzey and the editors of this journal for very helpful
suggestions, and to Oren Ahoobim and Justin Diener for excellent research assistance. We also
thank the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for financial support and the Beijer
Institute for Ecological Economics, Stockholm, for sponsoring the workshops from which this
paper emerged.
17
The rationale for many public policies remains strong irrespective of whether genuine investment is
positive or negative. From this, one might conclude that quantifying genuine investment is not very
useful. But measuring genuine investment still has significant value. By providing an overall “scorecard”
as to whether a nation is investing enough to sustain the welfare of future generations, it can offer an
important summary assessment that can help mobilize the general public and politicians.
170 Journal of Economic Perspectives
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