Court et al. (2018)_Long-term endogenous economic growth and energy transitions.pdf (604.53 kB)
Long-term endogenous economic growth and energy transitions
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 15:02 authored by Victor Court, Pierre-André Jouvet, Frédéric LantzThis article builds a bridge between the endogenous economic growth theory, the biophysical economics perspective, and the past and future transitions between renewable and nonrenewable energy forms that economies have had to and will have to accomplish. We provide an endogenous economic growth model subject to the physical limits of the real world, meaning that nonrenewable and renewable energy production costs have functional forms that respect physical constraints, and that technological level is precisely defined as the efficiency of primary-to-useful exergy conversion. The model supports the evidence that historical productions of renewable and nonrenewable energy have greatly influenced past economic growth. Indeed, from an initial almost-renewable-only supply regime we reproduce the increasing reliance on nonrenewable energy that has allowed the global economy to leave the state of economic stagnation that had characterized the largest part of its history. We then study the inevitable transition towards complete renewable energy that human will have to deal with in a not-too-far future since nonrenewable energy comes by definition from a finite stock. Through simulation we study in which circumstances this transition could have negative impacts on economic growth (peak followed by degrowth phase). We show that the implementation of a carbon price can partially smooth such unfortunate dynamics, depending on the ways of use of the income generated by the carbon pricing.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Energy JournalISSN
0195-6574Publisher
International Association for Energy EconomicsExternal DOI
Issue
1Volume
39Page range
29-57Department affiliated with
- SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-09-12First Open Access (FOA) Date
2020-12-15First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-09-12Usage metrics
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