Ecological Economics has not paid sufficient attention to the macroeconomic level both in terms of theory and modeling. Yet, key topics debated in the field of Ecological Economics such as sustainable consumption, reduction in working time, the degrowth debate, the energy-exergy link, and the rebound effect require a holistic and macro perspective. While this deficiency has been identified before and Keynesian economics has been generally suggested as a potent vehicle to establish economic system's thinking, very little concrete theorizing and practical suggestions have been put forward. We give further credence to this suggestion and demonstrate the value of tackling key concerns of Ecological Economics within a Keynesian growth framework. Contextualized by an application to climate change we suggest that policy relevant recommendations need to be based on a consistent view of the macroeconomy. We end with laying out key building blocks for a Keynesian model framework for an Ecological Macroeconomics. (authors' abstract)

Climate change is a major concern impacting every aspect of life including economics. Therefore, it seems interesting to discuss the role of monetary policy in global warming mitigation. Previous papers hint that monetary policy, especially the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing, may have a bad impact on the environment. Here we will check this statement using two simple linear regressions to see if quantitative easing has an impact on carbon emissions and firm’s willingness to pollute, in the Eurozone. We find that quantitative ease has no or very small effect on these environmental features. Finally, we will give an overview of the discussion around how quantitative easing and central banks’ actions can actively reduce climate change.

This paper analyses the socio-economic context into which environmental policies and ecological sentiments emerge through empirically studying the relation to the environment of different kinds of capitalism. The association and interaction of the relation to the environment with other key social relations, e.g. the labour-capital relations, are studied and discussed. To achieve this, I draw from Regulation Theory and augment its analytical framework with an explicit environmental dimension. I then conduct an empirical analysis of the diversity of contemporary capitalism including the social relation to the environment for a sample of thirty-seven OECD and BRICS countries. Five kinds of capitalism are identified: the Northern-continental European, the Southern-central European, the Anglo-Saxon and Pacific, the Emerging Countries and the Two Giants. A main result is the correspondence between ecology-prone social relations to the environment, labour oriented capital-labour relations and welfare-oriented states. However, the results show that countries that are the most ecology-prone are also the ones that have the most relocated their environmental impact, an observation consistent with the critical literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

Economic policy in the EU faces a trilemma of solving three challenges simultaneously - growth, distribution, and the environment. In order to assess policies that address these issues simultaneously, economic models need to account for both sector-sector and sector-environment feedbacks within a single framework.This paper presents a multi-sectoral stock-flow consistent (SFC) macro model where a demand-driven economy consisting of multiple institutional sectors - firms, energy, households, government, and financial - interacts with the environment. The model is calibrated for the EU region and five policy scenarios are evaluated; low consumption, a capital stock damage function, carbon taxes, higher share of renewable energy, and technological shocks to productivity. Policy outcomes are tracked on overall output, unemployment, income and income distributions, energy, and emission levels. Results show that investment in mitigation technologies allows for absolute decoupling and ensures that the above three issues can be solved simultaneously. / Series: WWWforEurope

Economic policy in the EU faces a trilemma of solving three challenges simultaneously - growth, distribution, and the environment. In order to assess policies that address these issues simultaneously, economic models need to account for both sector-sector and sector-environment feedbacks within a single framework.This paper presents a multi-sectoral stock-flow consistent (SFC) macro model where a demand-driven economy consisting of multiple institutional sectors - firms, energy, households, government, and financial - interacts with the environment. The model is calibrated for the EU region and five policy scenarios are evaluated; low consumption, a capital stock damage function, carbon taxes, higher share of renewable energy, and technological shocks to productivity. Policy outcomes are tracked on overall output, unemployment, income and income distributions, energy, and emission levels. Results show that investment in mitigation technologies allows for absolute decoupling and ensures that the above three issues can be solved simultaneously. (author's abstract) / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

Ecological Economics has not paid sufficient attention to the macroeconomic level both in terms of theory and modelling. Yet, key topics debated in the field of Ecological Economics such as sustainable consumption, reduction in working time, the degrowth debate, the energy-exergy link, and the rebound effect require a wholistic and macro perspective. While this deficiency has been identified before and Keynesian economics has been generally suggested as a potent vehicle to establish economic system's thinking, very little concrete theorizing and practical suggestions have been put forward. We give further credence to this suggestion and demonstrate the value of tackling key concerns of Ecological Economics within a Keynesian growth framework. Contextualized by an application to climate change we suggest that policy relevant recommendations need to be based on a consistent view of the macroeconomy. We end with laying out key building blocks for a Keynesian model framework for an Ecological Macroeconomics. (author's abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Le sujet de la présente thèse est La soutenabilité de l’accumulation du capital et de ses régimes : une approche macroéconomique en termes de soutenabilité forte. Elle s’articule en deux parties. Deux chapitres composent la première : le chapitre 1 s’inscrit dans le débat sur la possibilité d’un capitalisme stationnaire. Il analyse l’absence des rapports sociaux spécifiques du capitalisme dans les travaux de certains économistes écologiques au moyen d’exemples historiques de crise écologique et des théories éco-marxistes. Le chapitre 2 discute les analyses monétaires de certains économistes écologiques selon lesquelles un état stationnaire est incompatible avec un système dans lequel la monnaie est créée comme une dette portant intérêt en adoptant un point de vue post-keynésien. La deuxième partie est plus empirique et se compose de trois chapitres. Le chapitre 3 examine la relation sociale à l’exergie au sein du régime d’accumulation fordiste et du capitalisme financiarisé et mondialisé. L’approche en termes d’énergie est intégrée à un cadre théorique régulationniste informé par l’approche en termes de démocratie carbone. L’objectif est d’identifier des ruptures dans les modalités d’usage de l’énergie qui accompagnent les transformations observées dans d’autres domaines. Le chapitre 4 prolonge le précédent au moyen d’une analyse économétrique de la relation PIB-CO2 pour la France de 1950 à 2013 en tenant compte de la rupture dans les régularités de l’accumulation du capital entre le régime d’accumulation fordiste et le régime d’accumulation néolibéral ainsi que des possibles asymétries. Le chapitre 5 analyse les ambitions nationales en matière de réduction de gaz à effet de serre, dénommées volontarisme carbone, replacées dans le contexte du capitalisme globalisé et financiarisé contemporain. / The subject of my PhD is The sustainability of capital accumulation and its regimes : a strong sustainability macroeconomic approach. It is composed of two parts. The first one is composed of two chapters that review the literature on two aspects : The first chapter tackles the debate on stationary capitalism. It reviews the way capitalism is taken into account by ecological economists and analyzes it in light of historical examples of ecological crises and of insights from eco-marxist theories. Chapter 2 tackles the debate about the so-called monetary growth imperative analysed from a post-Keynesian point of view. The second part is a more empirical one and is composed of three chapters. Chapter 3 attempts at framing the exergy-useful work approach into a régulationnist theoretical framework informed with insights from the Carbon democracy approach. It investigates the social relationship to energy in the Fordist and Neoliberal accumulation regimes. The fourth chapter attempts at furthering the third chapter by investigating the CO2 - GDP relationship through econometric means taking into account structural breaks between accumulation regimes and possible asymmetries. Chapter 5 investigates the commitment of countries to reduce their greenhousegas emissions within the context of globalized finance-led capitalism.