Charles J Hitch - Energy Conservation and Economic Growth

First published 1978 by Westview Press, Inc.

Published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milto Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

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Copyright 1978 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-66339 ISBN:0-89158-354-8

ISBN 13: 978-0-3670-1817-7 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-3671-6804-9 (pbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429048036

This volume goes to the heart of the continuing debate on national energy policy: to adjust to the expected higher cost of energy, how much should we rely on conserving energy and how much on increasing energy supplies? The special focus of the book is the impact of energy conservation on economic growth. Is it positive, negative, or neutral?

The authors agree that higher energy costs in themselves will have some dampening effect on growth. But can conservation mitigate this effect? If so, what kind and amount of conservation is needed, and how can it be achieved? The book's optimists see in energy constraints an opportunity to achieve simpler, cleaner lifestyles via conservation and to resuscitate a stagnant, underemployed economy by investment in conservation and supply technologies. Even the pessimistic contributors assign some role to conservation, albeit a limited one. They stress, however, the need for increasing energy supplies to fuel the economic growth they consider necessary to achieve many other national and international objectives. The skeptics (and all the authors are to some degree skeptical) call for more research, and some describe in detail what research is needed. The book's distinguishing characteristics are its balanced presentation of a variety of possible economic responses to higher energy costs andthough it is addressed to economists and policymakersits accessibility to nonprofessional audiences.

The AAAS Selected Symposia Series was begun in 1977 to provide a means for more permanently recording and more widely disseminating some of the valuable material which is discussed at the AAAS Annual National Meetings. The volumes in this Series are based on symposia held at the Meetings which address topics of current and continuing significance, both within and among the sciences, and in the areas in which science and technology impact on public policy. The Series format is designed to provide for rapid dissemination of information, so the papers are not typeset but are reproduced directly from the camera-copy submitted by the authors, without copy editing. The papers are organized and edited by the symposium arrangers who then become the editors of the various volumes. Most papers published in this Series are original contributions which have not been previously published, although in some cases additional papers from other sources have been added by an editor to provide a more comprehensive view of a particular topic. Symposia may be reports of new research or reviews of established work, particularly work of an interdisciplinary nature, since the AAAS Annual Meetings typically embrace the full range of the sciences and their societal implications.

WILLIAM D. CAREY Executive Officer American Association for the Advancement of Science