Karen R. Polenske

Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World

Interactions between distant places are increasingly widespread and influential, often leading to unexpected outcomes with profound implications for sustainability. Numerous sustainability studies have been conducted within a particular place with little attention to the impacts of distant interactions on sustainability in multiple places. Although distant forces have been studied, they are usually treated as exogenous variables and feedbacks have rarely been considered. To understand and integrate various distant interactions better, we propose an integrated framework based on telecoupling, an umbrella concept that refers to socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances. The concept of telecoupling is a logical extension of research on coupled human and natural systems, in which interactions occur within particular geographic locations. The telecoupling framework contains five major interrelated components, i.e., coupled human and natural systems, flows, agents, causes, and effects. We illustrate the framework using two examples of distant interactions associated with trade of agricultural commodities and invasive species, highlight the implications of the framework, and discuss research needs and approaches to move research on telecouplings forward. The framework can help to analyze system components and their interrelationships, identify research gaps, detect hidden costs and untapped benefits, provide a useful means to incorporate feedbacks as well as trade-offs and synergies across multiple systems (sending, receiving, and spillover systems), and improve the understanding of distant interactions and the effectiveness of policies for socioeconomic and environmental sustainability from local to global levels.

Input–Output Anatomy of China's Energy Use Changes in the 1980s

China significantly reduced the energy intensity of its economy in the 1980s. In this paper, we conduct a structural decomposition analysis to explain Chinas energy use changes between 1981 and 1987—the years for which we have input–output tables. We find that Chinas energy saving during this period came about primarily by changes in how to produce (production technology changes) rather than changes in what to consume (final demand shifts). The driving force of the energy intensity decline was energy efficiency improvements, which were multiplied across the entire economy through inter-industry input–output linkages.

A Chinese cokemaking process-flow model for energy and environmental analyses

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of a process-flow model that will improve our understanding of the industrial energy use, efficiency, and pollution in the cokemaking sector in the Peoples Republic of China (China). We use a modified version of the input–output process model (IOPM), developed by Lin and Polenske. By modifying the design of the IOPM model for use in the cokemaking sector, we have made three key contributions. First, the end result of our design is a generic energy process-flow model that can be easily adapted for use in conducting energy and environmental analyses of cokemaking in China and other countries as well as examining other industrial processes in other sectors. Second, as we constructed our design framework, we have identified the key differences in energy use and pollution generation among three generic cokemaking technologies in China. Third, we have determined the crucial issues, such as changes in iron and steel making technologies, plant location, and world coal and coke trade, that may affect the cokemaking sector in China in the next decade. Our research is a micro-level examination of the production processes and input–output structure of three alternative types of cokemaking technologies (modified indigenous, small machinery, and nonrecovery) in use in Shanxi Province, China, in the year 2000.

The Economic Geography of Innovation

(2008). The Economic Geography of Innovation. Edited by Karen R. Polenske. Economic Geography: Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 239-240.This critical addition to the growing literature on innovation contains extensive analyses of the institutional and spatial aspects of innovation. Written by leading scholars in the fields of economic geography, innovation studies, planning, and technology policy, the fourteen chapters cover conceptual and measurement issues in innovation and relevant technology policies. The contributors examine how different institutional factors facilitate or hamper the flows of information and knowledge within and across firms, regions, and nations. In particular, they provide insights into the roles of important institutions such as gender and culture which are often neglected in the innovation literature, and demonstrate the key role which geography plays in the innovation process. Institutions and policy measures which support entrepreneurship and cluster development are also discussed. The result is a comparative picture of the institutional factors underlying innovation systems across the globe.

Input--output modeling of production processes for business management

Abstract The input—ouput model is traditionally used for macroeconomic analysis. In this paper, we develop a micro-level input—output process model and demonstrate how it can be used to provide information and analytical support for making business decisions. The input—output process model provides a mathematical description of production processes and the input—output structure of a company or plant. It includes all inputs into production, and records materials flow and financial transactions among different units within a company and between the company and the outside market. We derive a set of equations to describe the basic model structure and discuss how the basic model can be extended and used by managers for structural analysis, process analysis and environmental management.

Linkages in the construction sector

An important issue regarding the use of construction investment as a public policy tool is the magnitude of its contribution to growth and the nature of its interactions with the other sectors in the economy. Development planners have long used the concepts of backward and forward linkages to examine these interactions. None of the previous analysts, however, has concentrated on the construction sector. In this paper, we discuss the general nature of backward and forward linkages and their role in inducing economic development, present the most commonly used measures for quantifying and understanding the strength and nature of these linkages, and review estimates of backward linkages. In all countries for which estimates exist, we found that gross construction linkages are strong and that the economic impact of construction activities is relatively evenly dispersed over the sectors from which they obtain their inputs.

Current Uses of the RAS Technique: A Critical Review

Many analysts are using nonsurvey techniques to estimate national and regional input-output tables, interregional trade flows, and other types of economic data. Analysts’ extensive use of these techniques reflects the delicate compromise they must make between the cost of collecting actual data and the accuracy of the models with which they work. For adjusting and/or updating input-output tables, analysts most widely use the RAS procedure. Based upon the structure of a national or a different, but supposedly similarly structured, regional table, they employ the technique both to update national (regional) tables and to estimate regional tables. They use a base national (regional) table, A, and separately estimate marginal row (r) and columnand column (s) controls for the predicted year. They then iteratively adjust the flows in A first to sum to the respective rs and then to the respective ss until the new row and column totals in the new matrix are as close as designated to marginal (actual) totals.

Conserving energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in China

Abstract We analyze energy-intensity changes in the Peoples Republic of China (China) in the material production sector, which accounts for over 80% of total commercial energy consumption in China. Between 1980 and 1988, the energy intensity was reduced by 37%. Our analysis indicates that improvement in energy-efficiency, rather than structural change, was the dominant reason for this energy-intensity reduction. Using a shift-share analysis, we show that only from 1980 to 1981 was structural change the major cause of the energy-intensity reduction. For most of the other years, changes in industrial structure actually accelerated the growth of energy consumption and exerted an upward pressure on energy intensity. Our finding differs from that of other analysts. We also examine the potential for and barriers to further energy-intensity reductions, based primarily on information collected during our 1991 field trip to China.

Socioeconomic Impact Analysis of Yellow-dust Storms: An Approach and Case Study for Beijing

Abstract Dust storms can extensively disrupt socioeconomic activities and pose hazards to human health and the ecosystem; yet no one has made a systematic analysis of dust storms from an economic perspective. Using a case study for Beijing in 2000, we present a preliminary analysis of socioeconomic impacts of yellow-dust storms, integrating regional economic analysis models with environmental-economic evaluation techniques. Our analyses demonstrate that the costs of delayed effects of yellow-dust storms can be higher than those of the immediate effects, and that the impacts potentially caused by supply effects can be greater than those caused by demand effects. Because this is a preliminary analysis with extremely limited data, our primary purpose is not to produce precise numerical results, but to develop an integrated model that policy analysts can use and further improve in order to evaluate the comprehensive impacts of other phenomena with similar properties more accurately.

Leontief's spatial economic analyses

Abstract This paper provides a brief review of Wassily W. Leontiefs major contributions in intranational and multiregional input-output analyses. In addition, the importance of these contributions to todays accounting practices, data collection, and computer technologies are emphasized. A summary is provided of the distinctions between a national input-output model and four spatial models: regional, intranational, multiregional, and interregional.