Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 7 (2002), Issue 4, Pages 261-268
doi:10.1155/S1026022602000298

Growth, technology, and environmental change—nonlinearity and non-constant returns

Wei-Bin Zhang

Department of Management, Ritsumeikam Asia Pacific University, 1-1 Jumonjibaru, Beppu-Shi Oita-Ken 874-8577, Japan

; Revised 14 April 2001

Copyright © 2002 Wei-Bin Zhang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper proposes a growth model with endogenous technology and environmental change. The economy consists of two sectors, production and environmental. The production sector produces goods with knowledge, labor, and capital as inputs under perfect competitive conditions. Knowledge accumulates through learning by doing. The environment is affected by production, consumption, the environmental sector's production efficiency, and the nature's purification. The simple model shows that it is difficult to explicitly judge the impact of factors such as environmental policy, knowledge accumulation efficiency and preference change on the environment.