SUSTAINABILITY

• Sustainability should be seen as different from stability, although at first sight the
overlap seems obvious. It considers the long-term capacities of a system to exist,
not its short-term resistance to change. A well-known definition of sustainability
comes from the Bruntland Report prepared for the United Nations in 1987.
‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs’
• The Solow-Swan model from the 1950s saw the only chance for long-term

growth in innovations, rather than consumption.

• In the 1980s another powerful theory of Paul Romer and Robert Lucas
strengthened this way of thinking (called the new growth theory).
• The pioneer was Thomas Malthus, who published in 1798 a book on the grim
consequences of a rising population. The solution was found in increased
productivity of agriculture, which culminated in the Green Revolution.
• In 1968 Garret Hardin wrote his famous work 'Tragedy of the commons', which
analyzed how public goods got exhausted by actors in a free market economy.
• Figure 48.1 Top 20 of the highest public debt ratio (% to GDP)