Capital Accumulation and Technical Conditions along Sustainable Growth Paths

The paper deals with the conditions of capital accumulation that can guarantee a sustainable pollution level and, consequently, a growing carrying capacity of the ecosphere for humankind. It follows an approach of ecological economics, utilising laws and models derived from the ecological sciences to model some aspects of growing economic systems and their interaction with “other” ecological systems. The main task of this paper is to demonstrate that, under particular conditions, the earth’s carrying capacity for humankind can grow over time as the economic output does, and to illustrate under what conditions it is theoretically possible. Being this kind of analysis a very hard task, the paper will address the question utilising simplified economic models, linking some simplified ecological assumptions to a multisectorial growth model, with production of goods, “bads”, and pollution abatement services.