The holy grail of trend growth
The core objective of Australia’s economic policy is growth. The world has seen unprecedented GDP growth over the last half century and Australia has been a beneficiary of this. But how realistic is it that GDP can grow year on year, apparently forever? Or is achieving a steady-state economy and improving how income is distributed a more important and achievable objective than hoping and praying GDP goes up forever. In this article the question is addressed by examining recent and projected trends in population and GDP at the global scale.
Simulating sustainability
A global population – economy – resource model explores the future impact of declining resource availability on the world economy. The model tracks the likely future consumption of renewable resources, fossil fuels and non-renewable materials and the economic impact of availability.