Book Description

This volume provides a valuable introduction to hybrid I-O analysis and therefore should be useful to the growing number of researchers working with these techniques. Timothy J. Considine, Journal of Industrial Ecology This is a first-rate piece of work. . . Dr Hoekstra s book is the most comprehensive assessment of economic decomposition analysis to date. The author has clarified some confusions, filled in some important gaps in the literature and extended the methods both conceptually and empirically. He has done a most thorough job of constructing hybrid input output tables and applied them to the important issue of trends in material production use. His use of SDA for forecasting and backcasting of trends and policy making is also very impressive. Adam Rose, Pennsylvania State University, US Rutger Hoekstra examines the complex relationship between the monetary economy and the materials flows that are extracted and emitted by economic activities. These physical flows are responsible for many important environmental problems such as unsustainable resource depletion, waste production and climate change. This book discusses, applies and improves upon techniques which link the monetary and physical economies for environmental analyses. The book uses two sources of analysis: the physical input-output table (PIOT), a macro-economic account for the physical economy, recording material and product flows, including resource extraction, emissions and recycling; and structural decomposition analysis (SDA), which assesses the influence of structural changes, such as economic growth, consumption shifts, export growth and technological change, on environmental indicators. Methodological improvements in the PIOT and SDA systems are then presented by the author, and applied to empirical data. Ecological and industrial economists, along with those with an interest in environmental problems associated with the economy will find this book, with its extensive historical analysis and novel fore- and back-casting models, to be a fascinating read.