Interactions Between World Economic Growth and World Natural Resources

Statistics on national production levels and indicators of environmental pressure have been collected during the past few decades (and reconstructed for the more distant past) to document the link between world economic growth and the environment. The theory of world economic growth and economic theories of world natural resources provide explanations and interpretations of the trends as well as methods to assess future developments. The basic approach in most statistical and theoretical analyses is the decomposition of aggregate production function of a nation into, on the one hand, the current state of technology and, on the other hand, the inputs into the national production process. The main inputs are labor (hours worked), capital (produced means of production that can be used over a certain time period), and world natural resources. (more…)