Directed Technical Change, Environmental Sustainability, and Population Growth

Peter Kjær Kruse-Andersen

Directed Technical Change, Environmental Sustainability, and Population Growth

Abstract

Population growth has two potentially counteracting effects on pollution emissions:(i) more people implies more production and thereby more emissions, and (ii) more people implies a larger research capacity which might reduce the emission intensity of production, depending on the direction of research. This paper investigates how to achieve a given climate goal in the presence of these two effects. A growth model featuring both directed technical change and population growth is developed. The model allows for simultaneous research in polluting and non-polluting technologies. Both analytical and numerical results indicate that population growth is a burden on the environment, even when all research efforts are directed toward non-polluting technologies. Thus research subsidies alone cannot ensure environmental sustainability. Instead, the analysis shows that environmental sustainability requires pollution taxes and/or population control policies.

Original language	Danish
Publication status	Published - Nov 2019

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Kruse-Andersen, P. K. (2019). Directed Technical Change, Environmental Sustainability, and Population Growth. https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=843106086008087065080031072098075010017051024001008020124117120123012023071030125091049101001060018038058113071075022073083124109034011046042125016004100119125004041055094021015082110097004127081004095083009089119030071100100101006124115105112096099&EXT=pdf

Kruse-Andersen, PK 2019 'Directed Technical Change, Environmental Sustainability, and Population Growth'. <https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=843106086008087065080031072098075010017051024001008020124117120123012023071030125091049101001060018038058113071075022073083124109034011046042125016004100119125004041055094021015082110097004127081004095083009089119030071100100101006124115105112096099&EXT=pdf>

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