Innovation, Resources and Economic Growth

During the 1980s and the early 1990s, the technological revolution and the problem of the environment changed the working of the interactions between technological innovations, natural resources and growth. A selection of essays illustrates these changes at the international and global level also discussing the concepts of sustainable development from the perspective of general economics.

The analysis of the interactions between natural resourcescarcity, technological innovation and the dynamics of eco-nomic systems has a long-standing tradition in economics.During the 1980s and the early 1990s, a new phase of theseinteractions initiated under the effects of technologicalrevolution and the problem of the environment. The generalconcept behind this book is that the issue of natural resou-cesand the environment in relation to economic growth can-not be addressed without due consideration for the effectsof technological innovation on thedynamics of economic sy-stems. Technological innovation alone, however, is not asufficient condition for the sustainability of economicgrowth. Policies may have a role in solving the internatio-nal distribution problems generated by the non-convergingdevelopment path of developed and developing countries. Inparticular, the new international order shaped by the eventsof the 1980s, made it possible for world management to ad-dress the problems of poverty and the environment.

During the 1980s and the early 1990s, the technological revolution and the problem of the environment changed the working of the interactions between technological innovations, natural resources and growth. A selection of essays illustrates these changes at the international and global level also discussing the concepts of sustainable development from the perspective of general economics.

I. Introduction.- 1 Innovation, Resources and Economic Growth: Changing Interactions in the World Economy.- II. Technological Creativity and Institutions.- 2 Institutions, Technological Creativity and Economic History.- III. Innovation at Work in an Historical-Economic Perspective: Energy and Industrial Materials.- 3 Energy Efficient Technologies: Past and Future Perspectives.- 4 Economic Growth and the Intensity of Use of Industrial Materials.- IV. Scientific Revolutions and Strategies of Economic Supremacy: Advanced Materials and Biotechnologies.- 5 European Strategies in New Materials: A Global View.- 6 Biotechnology in the United States and Japan and the Bridge Between.- V. Economic Growth and Agro-Food Policies in Key Problem Regions: Former USSR and LDCs.- 7 The Agricultural and Food Sector of the Former Soviet Union: Transition to a Market Economy.- 8 The Plundering of Agriculture in Africa, Asia and Latin America.- VI. Economic Growth and Natural Resources at Risk: Climate Change, Forests and Water.- 9 Climate Change and the Future of Agriculture.- 10 The Economic Impact of Forest Decline in Europe.- 11 World Water Resources: Assessment and Prediction.- VII. Conclusion: Innovation and Resources in a Global Policy Perspective.- 12 International Order and Natural Resources.- List of Authors.- Index of Names.