Browsing by Author "Gaspar, Jorge dos Santos"
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- On the Nexus of Energy Use - Economic DevelopmentPublication . Marques, António Cardoso; Fuinhas, José Alberto; Gaspar, Jorge dos SantosGross Domestic Product (GDP) is inefficient for evaluating sustainable development, and the most suitable indicator for this is the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). This paper focuses on distinguishing the ISEW from GDP, mainly through the study of the energy consumption - economic growth nexus. The traditional hypotheses were tested using a Panel-Corrected Standard Errors estimator for twenty-two countries for the time span from 1995 to 2013. The findings show substantial differences between GDP and ISEW. This paper contributes to the discussion about the consequences of these two approaches for the design of suitable policies for a sustainable future.
- The traditional energy-growth nexus: A comparison between sustainable development and economic growth approachesPublication . Gaspar, Jorge dos Santos; Marques, António Cardoso; Fuinhas, José AlbertotGross Domestic Product (GDP) is the indicator commonly used to measure economic growth and sus-tainable development. However, this indicator can be very inefficient for evaluating development. Themost prominent alternative indicator is the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). Indeed, thisindex can be used to control for the way that countries use available resources, balancing ecologicaldevelopment, damages caused to the environment and income distribution between citizens. This papercompares a sustainable development approach, using the ISEW, with the traditional economic growthapproach using GDP, and its relationship with energy consumption. The traditional hypotheses of theenergy-growth nexus are tested through Panel-Corrected Standard Errors estimators, for a panel consti-tuted by twenty European countries, with an annual data frequency for the time span 1995–2014. Theresults indicate a new negative feedback hypothesis for the alternative measure of development anda conservative hypothesis for economic growth with energy consumption. This study also finds vari-ous other effects on sustainable development by economic growth factors, such as Terms-of-trade andRents from natural resources. These findings indicate that the economic growth approach, widely stud-ied using GDP, has been wrongly interpreted by policy makers trying to achieve increased sustainabledevelopment.