Jevons paradox

tags
Economics, Climate
resources
(York, McGee 2016; Polimeni et al. 2015), Wikipedia, Real climate economics blog posts (Jim Barrett)

Definition

Jevons Paradox is used to describe the situation where an increase in resource efficiency triggered by technological innovation has the counter-intuitive effect of raising the demand and increasing the overall consumption.

It was first described in W. S. Jenvons’ book The Coal question in 1865.

It is closely to another paradox well known in road planning (Downs–Thomson paradox) and Wirth’s law in software engineering.

Bibliography

  1. . . "Understanding the Jevons Paradox". Environmental Sociology 2 (1):77–87. DOI.
  2. . . The jevons' paradox and the myth of resource efficiency improvements.
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