Bleischwitz, R; Nechifor, V; (2016) Saturation and Growth Over Time: When Demand for Minerals Peaks. Cournot Centre: Paris, France.

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Abstract

Decoupling is at the core of the contemporary debate about economic growth and natural resources: will the delinking of economic growth and resource use happen at all given the dynamics in developing countries? Will it happen through an invisible hand of progress and improvements in resource efficiency? What lessons can be learned from a long-term international perspective? This prisme combines the analytical strands of resource economics and material flow analysis to answer those questions. It looks at materialspecific demand and stock build-up trends over an extended time horizon of a century. Four materials (steel, cement, aluminium and copper) are analysed for a group of four industrialized countries (Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA) together with China, as the most pre-eminent emerging economy. Analysing a new set of per capita and gross domestic product indicators, our research confirms the relevance of a saturation effect with a number of specifications. We cautiously expect decoupling processes to occur in China over the next few decades, and most likely in other developing countries as well. Forecasts and modelling efforts should take such saturation into account.

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