IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/10086.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is India on a Sustainable Development Path?

Author

Listed:
  • Kumar, Surender

Abstract

Sustainability requires that the productive base measured in terms of comprehensive wealth of a society should be increasing on per capita basis. Comprehensive wealth includes manufactured, human and natural capital along with knowledge base and institutions. This study offers methodological improvements and provides estimates of the growth rate of per capita comprehensive wealth over the period 1970-2006 for Indian economy. It considers air, water and soil degradation along with energy, minerals and forests depletion. To measure the value and composition of investment in natural capital, it estimates resource depreciation allowances on the basis of Hotelling rent; it adjusts education expenditure for depreciation in human capital; and uses the estimates of TFP that takes into account natural capital in the production of commodities and services. The empirical application suggests that Indian economy is barely sustainable. Growth rate of per capita comprehensive wealth was virtually near zero, it was only 0.15 percent per year for the study period. The growth rate was negative till 1983. Thereafter it became positive; however it was less than one percent in 1980s and 1990s. In recent years the growth rate was about 4 percent. Despite certain limitations, the study underscores the need for vigorous public policies that help in preventing excessive resource depletion and promoting higher genuine investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Kumar, Surender, 2008. "Is India on a Sustainable Development Path?," MPRA Paper 10086, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:10086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/10086/1/MPRA_paper_10086.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Arrow & Partha Dasgupta & Karl-Göran Mäler, 2003. "Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(4), pages 647-685, December.
    2. Hamilton, Kirk & Clemens, Michael, 1999. "Genuine Savings Rates in Developing Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 333-356, May.
    3. Wim Groot, 1998. "Empirical estimates of the rate of depreciation of education," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(8), pages 535-538.
    4. Dasgupta, Partha & Mã„Ler, Karl-Gã–Ran, 2000. "Net national product, wealth, and social well-being," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 69-93, February.
    5. Vincent, Jeffrey R., 1997. "Resource depletion and economic sustainability in Malaysia," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 19-37, February.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1976. "A Theory of Life Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 45-67, August.
    7. Kumar, Surender, 2006. "Environmentally sensitive productivity growth: A global analysis using Malmquist-Luenberger index," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 280-293, February.
    8. Maria Arrazola & Jose de Hevia, 2004. "More on the estimation of the human capital depreciation rate," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 145-148.
    9. Ayres, Robert U., 2008. "Sustainability economics: Where do we stand?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 281-310, September.
    10. Vincent, J. & Casteneda, B., 1997. "Economic Depreciation of Natural Resources in Asia and Implications for Net Savings and Long-Run Consumption," Papers 614, Harvard - Institute for International Development.
    11. Vouvaki, Dimitra & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2008. "Changes in social welfare and sustainability: Theoretical issues and empirical evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 473-484, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gren, Ing-Marie & Isacs, Lina, 2009. "Ecosystem services and regional development: An application to Sweden," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2549-2559, August.
    2. Perrings, Charles, 2014. "Environment and development economics 20 years on," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 333-366, June.
    3. Kumar, Surender, 2013. "Comprehensive wealth and sustainable development in India," MPRA Paper 43809, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Glenn-Marie Lange, 2014. "Environmental accounting," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 21, pages 319-335, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    6. Craig A. Bond, 2017. "Valuing Coastal Natural Capital in a Bioeconomic Framework," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(02), pages 1-26, April.
    7. Andrés Gómez-Lobo E., 2001. "Sustainable development and natural resource accounting in a small open economy: a methodological clarification," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 28(2 Year 20), pages 203-216, December.
    8. Simon Janßen & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2009. "Skill Obsolescence, Vintage Effects and Changing Tasks," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(1), pages 83-103.
    9. Yamaguchi, Rintaro, 2020. "Available capital, utilized capital, and shadow prices in inclusive wealth accounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    10. Ferreira, Susana & Moro, Mirko, 2010. "Constructing Genuine Savings Indicators for Ireland, 1995-2005," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2010-10, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    11. Bazhanov, Andrei, 2012. "Disregarded inefficiency may dominate sustainability policies," MPRA Paper 43621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Alisjahbana, Armida & Yusuf, Arief Anshory, 2003. "Assessing Indonesia's sustainable development: long-run trend, impact of the crisis, and adjustment during the recovery period," MPRA Paper 1736, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Dasgupta, Partha, 2010. "The Place of Nature in Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4977-5046, Elsevier.
    14. Pezzey, J.C.V.John C. V., 2004. "One-sided sustainability tests with amenities, and changes in technology, trade and population," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 613-631, July.
    15. Kirk Hamilton, 2016. "Measuring Sustainability in the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 64(1), pages 25-36, May.
    16. Doyen, L. & Martinet, V., 2012. "Maximin, viability and sustainability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1414-1430.
    17. Partha Dasgupta, 2009. "The Welfare Economic Theory of Green National Accounts," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(1), pages 3-38, January.
    18. Yamaguchi, Rintaro & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "Backward- and Forward-looking Shadow Prices in Inclusive Wealth Accounting: An Example of Renewable Energy Capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 337-349.
    19. Geir B. Asheim & Rintaro Yamaguchi, 2023. "Comprehensive National Accounting for Carbon Emissions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10562, CESifo.
    20. Dovern, Jonas & Rickels, Wilfried & Quaas, Martin F., 2012. "Nachhaltigkeitspotenzial deutscher Städte," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 59526, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainability; development; Comprehensive wealth; Hotelling rent; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:10086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.