Sustainable development: conceptualizations and measurements

In: Brazilian journal of political economy: Revista de economia política, Band 28, Heft 2/110, S. 207-225

Abstract

The paper builds up from a review of some expected, but other quite surprising results regarding country estimates for the year 2000 of genuine saving, a sustainability indicator developed by a World Bank research team. The author examines this indicator, founded on neoclassical welfare theory, and discusses one of its major problems. Theoretical developments from ecological economics are then considered, together with insights from Georgescu-Roegen's approach to the production process, in search for an alternative approach. A model with potentially fruitful contributions in this direction is reviewed; it points the course efforts could take enable sustainability evaluations based on a more realistic set of interrelated monetary and biophysical indicators. (Rev Econ Polit/GIGA)