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Le développement durable en question : analyses économiques autour d'un improbable compromis entre acceptions optimiste et pessimiste du rapport de l'Homme à la Nature

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  • Alban Verchère

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Since the publication of the Brundtland Report more than 20 years ago, sustainable development became always more popular. If it is probably necessary to operationalize it more effectively in order to foster its daily perception by people, sustainable development remains a soft concept since the beginning because its sources are both old and various. Our purpose in this paper is, first of all, to reconstitute the long history about relationship between men and nature in economics, from Malthus writings up to weak and strong conceptions of sustainability. We shall see that these debates exhibit a continuous opposition between optimistic and pessimistic parties and, moreover, considering that each party has reasonable arguments to oppose to the other, each of them had finally contributed to foster the economic analysis of sustainable development around which can be now considered as two kind of traditions: environmental and resources economics on one hand, and ecological economics on the other.

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  • Alban Verchère, 2011. "Le développement durable en question : analyses économiques autour d'un improbable compromis entre acceptions optimiste et pessimiste du rapport de l'Homme à la Nature," Post-Print halshs-00759885, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00759885
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