Changes in Materials Use in Transition Economies

Abstract

SummaryThis article examines the development of material consumption in three transition economies during the years 1990–2002. We compare the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland and benchmark their material consumption against average values for the 15 member states of the European Union (formation as of 1995) representing a typical market economy. The article compares consumption of materials in these countries and relates them to relevant socioeconomic variables, using the IPAT equation as a starting point. The article tries to answer whether there has been a convergence in per capita material consumption in these transition economies, in order to identify commonalities associated with the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in terms of the development of material consumption. We investigate the relation between material consumption, population development, economic growth, and technological change during the transition.We show that the three transition economies, in general, experienced a convergence in per capita material consumption, including a common decrease in the consumption of biomass. Two out of three countries further recorded a decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels and an increase in the consumption of minerals. We found a general trend of increasing dependence on foreign resources during the transition. On the basis of the IPAT analysis, we found that the development of material consumption was mostly driven by the growth in consumption and by technological change. Although gross domestic product (GDP) growth contributed to a growth in material consumption, the influence of technology supported a reverse effect. In some of the countries, however, the factors decreasing material consumption (i.e., shifts to services and technological change) were not able to outweigh those factors causing material consumption to grow (i.e., increase in GDP).