Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
There has also been a renewed interest in studying the role played by income or
wealth inequality, social public spending, and socio-institutional settings in the
long-term economic performance of nations.
8
When income inequality approached
the maximum permitted by available wealth and the need to reproduce the labour
force at a subsistence level, societies often get caught in a
lock-in
state: the great majority of people could not change the situation, and the privileged
minority did not want to. This explains why the agrarian class structure, the social
con
'
worlds apart
'
icts that arise within it, and the kind of institutional changes fostered by social
and political struggles are so important for historical processes of economic
development.
9
All these socio-institutional settings and human capabilities raise important
questions that deserve to be studied in their own right. They have more than likely
played a key role, considering them as results as well as crucial factors, that help
explain why economic growth has taken certain directions in only some places and
in only certain periods, and by whom. Also, if we apply here the distinction put
forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum between economic growth and
human development, taking into consideration all these important questions may
signi
fl
cantly help explain historical human development as an individual and col-
lective increase in freedom of choice and
.
10
Nevertheless, it is
'
'
empowerment
doubtful that this can ever
ll the Solow residual gap to explain how economic
growth takes place. After several decades of endogenous growth analyses, the
growth engine remains a black box.
11
Although the historical process of human development has always included
many social, institutional and symbolic dimensions, we should wonder if the
empowerment of human capabilities, and the enhancement of individual and social
choices, could ever be attained without relying on a greater amount of energy power
able to move an increasing amounts of physical
ows in a wider global scope.
12
According to both qualitative and quantitative historical evidence, physical and
energy resource
fl
ows have always been a major factor in increasing the aggregated
production of goods and services. A recent contribution to a never-ending debate,
the Bob Allen topic on The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, has
again stressed the role played by the supply of cheap coal as a driving force for the
beginning of modern economic growth in England.
13
Several economic and environmental historians have studied this link between
coal and the British Industrial Revolution, or underlined the role played by the
increasing access to fossil fuels for other regions of the world to industrialize and
fl
8
Lindert (
2004
), Acemoglu (
2004
,
2009
), Acemoglu and Robinson (
2006
) and Aghion and
Williamson (
1998
).
9
Aston and Philpin (
1985
), Hoppenbrouwers and van Zanden (
2001
) and Milanovic (
2005
).
10
Sen (
1993
,
1999
).
11
Easterly (
2002
) and Helpman (
2004
).
12
Ayres and Warr (
2005
).
13
Allen (
2009
).
