Developing Ecological and Enviromental Macromodels

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Guilherme de
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Desenvolvendo econômico; crescimento econômico; sustentabilidade; Development economics; Economic growth; Sustainability
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/12/12140/tde-02082016-131453/

The objective of this Dissertation is to develop alternative macromodels that explore macroeconomic implications of some environmental and ecological economics concerns. The first essay develops an environmental extension of a Lewis dual economy model to explore long-run effects of a pollution abatement rule in developing economies. It is shown that this pollution abatement requirement makes for the possible emergence of an ecological development trap. Meanwhile, this economy can be released from such a trap not only through a standard Big Push, but also by means of what the essay calls an Environmental Big Push. The second essay presents an extension of a Harrodian model of cyclical growth, which explores a bidirectional causal relationship between the environment and effective demand in dual low-income economies with relatively low levels of environmental quality. The model shows that perpetual vicious circles may characterize the pattern of fluctuations in economic activity. Finally, the third essay presents a classical--Marxian model that describes a possible transitional dynamics to clean technology based on evolutionary game theory. The results show that heterogeneity in the frequency distribution of strategies of the adoption of clean and dirty techniques may be a persistent outcome. An outcome in which all, or at least a great proportion of firms, adopt the clean technique is theoretically possible, but inevitably, such a result is only achieved with an initial profit-reducing shock on functional income distribution and thus a fall in economic growth.