Samhällsekonomiska aspekter och mått på hållbar utveckling

The publication with the most articles in the selection is Ecological Economics with
46 % of the articles. 35 % of the articles come from the Journal of Environmental Economics
and Management. Other publications contribute with 1–3 % each.
The most common question in the selection concerns the hypothesis of the environmental
Kuznets Curve. This hypothesis says that degradation of the environment increases as a
country’s economy grows larger but that this relationship only applies to a certain level
and that emissions/environmental degradation thereafter reduces as a result of increased
preference given to environmental concerns. Taken as a whole, the empirical articles
point to different results, but in general there would appear to be support for the
environmental Kuznets Curve for local airborne emissions, while emissions like carbon
dioxide, whose effects are more global and indirect seem to increase monotonically with
income or have really high turning points. As an example, an article by Khanna and
Plassmann (2004) shows that not even households in the USA with high incomes have
reached a sufficiently high income level for the relationship between income and all of
the studied emissions to show a downward turn.
The next most common questions have been classified as issues concerning weak and
strong sustainability and include the possibility of substituting natural capital for manufactured
capital. The sustainability index and environment policy are other commonly
occurring classes of questions. In the sustainable index group, the articles address
sustainability indices in various ways, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic
Welfare (ISEW) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). In addition to these, measures
of wealth and income are also addressed. Articles in the environment policy group generally
address how to move in the direction of reduced emissions through taxes, regulation
or other means to achieve more sustainable development. Finally there is a group for
‘Other’ which is wide ranging in content. For instance, it includes articles on the Porter
hypothesis, which introduced the idea that environmental regulation can eventually
favour the companies concerned.
Summarised conclusions
We can note that Sweden is to the fore internationally when it comes to conceptual/theoretical
issues, and also that we have good statistics in the area thanks to
investments made as a result of the Swedish Commission on Resource Accounting.
The report shows that despite the differing perspectives and divergent findings, there is
a consensus among economists that several economic concepts, including the concepts
of capital and growth need to be revised such that they can more comprehensively
cover fundamental components in the production base and the returns from such, including
products and services from nature. The report also shows the difficulties that
this entails, of which one of the most fundamental is the correct pricing of currently
non market priced products and services.
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