Continuing the Tradition: Employing Tested and Emerging Economic Tools in Framing Sustainability Challenges for a Global Economy

Abstract

Abstract Economists have been successful in bringing their definitional and analytical tools to many of the problems that have confronted society over the past century and more, from Smith’s explanation of how nations produce wealth to Arrow’s explanation of the impossibility of social choice and Keynes’ general theory of money and interest. With the issue of sustainability, we draw on economic agents’ attempts at rational choice under uncertainty to understand the opportunities and challenges. We argue that employing system dynamic modeling approach to the problem could offer careful assessment of the soundness of sustainability strategies. Keywords: Sustainability, Adaptive Management, System Dynamic Modeling Introduction About a generation or two ago, smoking was a very accepted social behavior and little thought went into its individual and public health hazard. Today, it is outlawed in many public places around the world, forcing cigarette companies to find new markets and tobacco farmers to find new crops to invest their resources in. Similarly, when the automobile was introduced at the beginning of the last century, its benefits were so large in comparison to preceding modes of transportation that its inherent safety risks and other weaknesses were unperceived or