Talk:Jevons paradox

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Contents 1 Question about the corollary 2 A Corollary to the Jevons Paradox (utter garbage) 3 Corollary only appears on Wikipedia 4 How is this even called a paradox? 5 It's more of a Catch-22. 6 When Jevon's Paradox Fails 7 Link to efficiency in second paragraph 8 Please do not remove contributions without appropriate discussion 9 Hetrodox and reference 10 Scope of the 'Jevons paradox' 11 Merge with Rebound Effect?

[edit] Question about the corollary

As far as the example in the article goes I have a question, the 2 additional workers hired by this hypothetical environmentally efficient company use up more energy by commuting only if they were unemployed previously? If they commuted the same distance to their previous job then there is no net increase in energy loss/inefficiency, right? What if these two new employees discover an even greater efficiency? Is this paradox basically saying that any efficiency has to be ubiquitous to really help long term? I think this article needs more info and clarity. zen master T 01:23, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree and would like to see the article be much longer. You are correct in your statement that Jevon's paradox implies that the efficiency of overall systems is far more important than individual systems, but it goes one step further. What it is saying is that the economy can now support two new additional workers that could not have been supported before because of the cost savings from using alternative energy. When there is cost savings the economy will expand to consume the conserved resources and the net result will be increased consumption. John187 17:08, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is this Jevons paradox definitely true or just likely? What are the implications? Is it implying things like fuel efficiency must be mandated by law for any efficiency to work globally? Is it saying that in an environment of decreasing energy supplies any localized energy efficiency won't help overall? Does this paradox only exist when the global economy or certain local economies are expanding or trying to expand? If I had to guess I think this paradox disappears when economic expansion in the traditional sense is replaced with a concept of using increased efficiencies to maintain the status quo of economic output but with less and less energy, rather than trying to expand. This sounds vaguely similar to Steady State economic theory, but I don't know enough about that either. Is there a wikipedia article on that? zen master T 18:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's just speculation and conjecture. Jevon noticed that the consumption of coal skyrocketed after the introduction of the Watt steam engine, which very efficiently converted the coal into work. Rather than old technology which were too expensive to use, the Watt engine made coal burning useful on a mass scale. So despite the fact that the Watt engine was far more energy efficient (think hydrogen fuel cells, solar power, wind energy ...) than previous technology, coal consumption actually sky rocketed. I have wondered if there is a way to relate this idea to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but havn't come up with a good way yet. Still, I have to admit that when I read Jevon I do get a kind of hint at the concepts of energy conservation (physics) and entropy. In particular the idea that energy consumption will either be the same or will increase strikes me as the same statement as the 2nd law. In physics the second law results from the fact that a gas must grow to consume the entire volume that contains it. The gas can't live in half the jar, that would be crazy, it fills the whole thing, so we end up with entropy. The question in economics is if people can live in half the jar or if we fill up the whole damn thing. So far, and based on Jevon's paradox, it looks like we want to fill up the whole thing, or use all the available energy as much as possible, but I suppose there are those that hope we may eventually learn to subsist in half the jar. Wish I could answer this question. John187 03:57, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have doubts about the whole corollary section. First, I cannot see a clear statement of what is the corollary. Second, I think the example is not particularly clear, and a different example might be better. But something about this is still continuing: since 1973, industrialised countries have substantially increased their energy efficiency, and this has helped economic growth, meaning we now consume more energy despite a sharply reduced enegy intensity.

The Corollary is confusing and nonsensical. I'm new to wikipedia so i wont do it, but i'll say that it ruins the article. Also, can't Jevons paradox be applied to labor/wages? (ie as a refutation to marxist "wage slavery"). Marxists believe that increased industrial efficiency would mean perpetually decreasing demand for labor and therefore perpetually decreasing wages- Jevons paradox, if applied to labor, would indicate that as industrial efficiency increases, the demand for labor actually increases because increases in demand for product outstrips increased productivity. I've always that this was a better application of jevons paradox.

I too would like to see an expansion of this article (but also won't be the one to write it) and I'd like to know more about how this can effect overall efficiency efforts. Cars, for instance, appear to be driven more the less is spent on gasoline and hence hybrids may have less efficiency than the raw numbers would suggest. But the amount of use my TV and computer get have almost nothing to do with their power consumption. When does Jevon's paradox apply and when doesn't it? When does greater efficiency result in increased energy usage and when does Jevon's paradox merely result in a drag on efficiency?

[edit] A Corollary to the Jevons Paradox (utter garbage)

Localized solutions to global problems often confound the solution of the overall problem. Jevons paradox implies that as individuals become increasingly efficient, the overall economy will compensate by supporting additional individuals and increasing overall consumption.

For example, consider a green business which attempts to alleviate global environmental concerns by consuming renewable energy resources. If the business saves 10 units of energy from the local power plant which operates at 40% efficiency, they will save 1000 units of currency. This cost savings will allow the business to hire an additional two employees.

However, each of these two employees must commute to work in automobiles. These automobiles still consume 10 units of energy because they operate at only 15% energy efficiency. Thus by switching to renewable energy, the business has reduced the overall energy efficiency per unit of consumed resources from 40% to 15%.

By first saving money, then using it to hire two new employees, the green business has actually expanded the economy. The expansion of the economy will most likely result in an overall increase in energy consumption, which in the example above also shows the possibility of reducing energy efficiency by its effects in the wider community.

This paradox illustrates how difficult it is to solve global economic problems.

---

Questions:

1) Why does the automobile consumes exactly 10 units of energy, which is exactly the amount saved by the factory?

2) Why does 1 unit of energy cost 100 unit of currency?

3) Why does the efficiency of total energy comsumption drop from 40% to 15% instead of 40% to 35% ? Is the energy efficiency inside the factory drop from 40% to 15% just because two new employees drive to work?

4) Why the assumption that the saving in energy in the factory is less than the energy consumption of two extra automobiles?

Someone removed the corollary section only to have the whole article reverted. In an attempt to avoid a revert war, I've removed the example from the corollary section, but left a quick description of what the alleged corollary is. The example was garbage that looked like it had just been made up without any real analysis behind it. If someone can come up with an example that can withstand scrutiny, please post it to the talk page first so it can be critiqued first. --Flatline 19:36, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Seems like there is confusion around the word "paradox", perhaps we should retitle this article to something like Jevon's theory or something like energy efficiency paradox which seems like a more accurate way of describing Jevon's theories? A "paradox" does kind of exist in the sense that increased efficiency actually can make society overall less efficient when it comes to using resources in absolute terms, right? zen master T 19:46, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

"Jevons paradox" is the phrase used in economics. HGB 01:54, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Corollary only appears on Wikipedia

I've just spent some time googling for the alleged corollary of Jevons paradox and didn't find any mention of it at all. The only hits on Google were Wikipedia and sites that scrape Wikipedia content. If the corollary were part of the normal discussion of Jevons paradox, then it might have a place in the article, but since it doesn't appear to be part of the normal discussion, I'm going to remove it from the article. If someone comes up with some references to the alleged corollary (outside of the Wikipedia article and sites that scraped the article), then we can discuss adding the corollary section back into the article. --Flatline 00:35, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How is this even called a paradox?

Economists have held, since the very beginning, that an increase in supply inceases the quantity supplied and decreases the price. An increase in efficiency means an increase in supply, so of course more will be consumed. This doesn't contradict any intuition and hence is not a paradox. MrVoluntarist 20:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Your analysis seems oversimplified to me. By increasing efficiency, the amount of fuel consumed for the same amount of work decreases (at the same time reducing cost of said work and reducing demand for the fuel). Overall consumption increases if and only if the reduction consumed by current applications is less than the fuel consumed by new applications made viable by the reduction in fuel costs.

Right. Hence, not a paradox. It's what basic economic theory predicts. MrVoluntarist 17:03, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Should we add an ecomonic analysis to the article? --Flatline 11:55, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure. And I know we can't do original research, but he arguments against it being a paradox can be a bit more prominent. MrVoluntarist 17:03, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I made some changes to make clearer that it's an observation and has no predictive power of its own. Please take a look at it to make sure that I didn't introduce any factual errors or overstate anything. Also, I didn't bother to include any wiki-links, so feel free to add links back in as appropriate. --Flatline 19:12, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I like your changes. If I think of anything that can improve it, I'll add it. MrVoluntarist 19:43, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Here is why it is called a paradox, though I would concede it isn't exactly the right word. The theory supports the Malthusian argument that humans will eventually destroy themselves, or at least severely degrade their standard of living, by consuming all available natural resources. One of the earliest anti-Malthusian arguments was that increased efficiency could help solve the problem by making available resources last longer. Jevon's Paradox points out that increased efficiency has the opposite of the assumed effect - that it increases, rather than decreases, the rate of depletion. Sevenwarlocks 17:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the statement "an increase in supply, so of course more will be consumed" is not necessarily true. I think this is where classical economists come unstuck. Perhaps this is an underlying assumption. Oddd

[edit] It's more of a Catch-22.

The purpose of efficiency is to reduce consumption. However efficiency improvements historically lead to additional consumption over the long term. So by attempting to reduce the consumption, it actually increases.

I disagree. The primary purpose of increased efficiency is to reduce costs. To draw any conclusions about long term consumption without more carefully looking at the context is premature. --Flatline 12:00, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Increased efficiency does reduce costs, but it does so by decreasing the quantity of energy use. So it achieves cost reduction through consumption reduction.

You're confusing the goal with the means. The goal is to reduce costs. Often, but not always, the means is to reduce fuel consumption.

For example, if an engine could be built that required no maintanence ever, but consumed twice the fuel, there are people who would switch to it in a heartbeat even though it's less efficient. This is because for some applications, maintanence is a bigger expense than fuel.

Alternatively, if an engine was developed that burned half the fuel, but cost significantly more to manufacture, people would only be interested if it ran long enough and maintanence was cheap enough that the efficiency gains would eventually pay for the difference between the new engine and a conventional one. If the engine was too expensive to maintain or would fail irrepairably before the break-even point, nobody would buy it even though its use would reduce consumption. --Flatline 20:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Does this "cost analysis" factor in the extra polution "costs" and need for extra fuel capacity and transoprtation "costs" that result from this twice as inefficient yet maintanence free engine? Costs to the comsumer or everyone are nevertheless costs, right? How do you reconcile fuel costs with say engine mechanic salary costs, are they truly comparable entities? zen master T 23:18, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I think you are talking about the problem of externalities? --Mathish 16:00, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Comparing fuel costs with engine mechanic salary costs is easy since with any mature engine design, efficiencies and maintenance schedules (including parts and downtime) are well known. All other costs are considered only if they are paid by the owner (for this is how all capital expense decisions are made). This includes any liability associated with the decision (for example, if a particular engine causes cancer in people close to it, you can be sure that that liability will have a cost assigned to it when the analysis is made. Same with pollution.). --Flatline 18:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] When Jevon's Paradox Fails

Jevon's Paradox fails when the price of energy is going up since conservation only enables you to keep the bills in place rather than lowering them so you have no additional money from saving energy to spend elsewhere on consuming energy.

It can also fail if all or most of the money from energy savings is invested into more energy efficiency.

In general, Jevons Paradox will only apply when the limiting factor in using a particular fuel is the cost of the fuel. Please note that for this to be true, there must be no superior substitutes for the fuel. --Flatline 13:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Jevon's Paradox fails when the price of energy is going up since conservation only enables you to keep the bills in place rather than lowering them so you have no additional money from saving energy to spend elsewhere on consuming energy.

Wrong. If you didn't conserve energy, it would become even more expensive. And if you do conserve it, it just makes it cheaper for others to use. Richard001 10:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link to efficiency in second paragraph

I've changed the link from efficiency from efficiency (economics) to just plan efficiency, since it's not really economic efficiency we're talking about here, rather the normal sense of being able to get a greater output for a given input. That is, more work for a given amount of fuel. (I wrote the original paragraph, and this is definately the meaning I intended.)

Since this page is also about economics, maybe we need to change the wording a bit so as to avoid any confusion that we could be talking about economic efficiency there?

--Mathish 10:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm new to this so please excuse ant breaches of etiquette. I think it would be best to start again with something like the following:

Jevons Paradox

A proposition put forward by the economist William Stanley Jevons in his book 'The Coal Question' (1865). It asserts that greater efficiency in the use of any resource always increases consumption of it. As a hypothesis it is worthless: it explains nothing which cannot be explained fully by generally accepted economic theory and it cannot be tested because it is impossible to specify a time frame within which the increased consumption must take place.

Scepticc 23:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)scepticc

[edit] Please do not remove contributions without appropriate discussion

Jevons Paradox is well understood in Economics. My edits reflect the mainstream economic view on the subject. Additionally, Energy Policy is a respected peer-reviewed academic journal. As such it represents scholarly consensus on a topic, and should not be treated as if it was one person's view cited off the internet. --lk (talk) 18:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

You're referring to my edit, I think. But I didn't remove that, or any, reference -- the version just before your revert had the Energy Policy reference. I just moved the reference around. I also added a {{main}} template, reworded some passages, and generally cleaned the article up. The only obvious thing I did to move the article to its earlier form was to change "Theoretical Explanation" to simply Explanation, as the longer section title seemed unnecessary.

I'd appreciate it if you would undo your revert.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you reverted most of my edits. Perhaps you were working from an earlier copy? Anyway, let's just move on from where the article stands now. --lk (talk) 18:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I went back to my version. First, I think you'll notice that it has much more in common with your version than the version just before your edits: diff from yours diff from old.

Second, it addresses many problems with your version:

• Grammar mistakes were fixed, and capitalization was changed to meet Wikipedia standards
• See also should include only links not otherwise included in the article. I opted to have a {{main}} link to the rebound article rather than a see also -- of course you're welcome to change that if you prefer a see also or a parenthetical rather than a main.
• The related Greening and Potter articles are mentioned together rather than apart, allowing for easier comparison
• Some passages were re-worded for easier reading.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

You have once again reverted my edits. I ask you to stop. You stand in danger of breaking the 3 reverts rule. --lk (talk) 19:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I justified my edit, and have now reverted yours twice. I don't like to revert, but I see my version as a strict improvement of yours for the reasons above. I'd be happy to work with you on making a better version yet, but so far you have not shown any willingness to work with me. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:26, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

You misrepresented your edits. Their main effect was not to clean up language but to revert my contributions. You have broken the 3 reverts rule. I will now re-input my contributions. I ask you to not start an edit war. It it clear from the edits that you are trying to push a view that is not mainstream economics. Please stop now. --lk (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Funny, I was tempted to make the same accusation. I've been watching this article for months, and the same day you made your edits I went to correct the mistakes -- and leave in the good stuff. Didn't you look at the diffs I provided?

Regardless, I did not break WP:3RR, although you can say that I did if you prefer -- no skin off my back. (As I understand it you have yourself broken 3RR, although I won't hold it against you.) I am somewhat more concerned about your assumption that I acted in mala fide, but I suppose that's to be expected.

As I explained, I'm not willing to back down because I feel I have made substantial worthwhile changes in my edits. You apparently don't think so, and that's fine. But I would ask that you expand on one thought. In what way am I "trying to push a view that is not mainstream economics"? Perhaps I missed something in my edit that I should change.

If you aren't willing to work with me to make a better article, this process will be more difficult. I prefer to handle editing nonconfrontationally when possible, even amongst feuding parties -- Kemeny-Young method being my most recent example. But if need be I will continue to repair the article even without you. Better would be to bring in some third-party editors to help out -- surely with more eyes the article would be better, no?

CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, let's just assume good faith and restart. I'll be specific about my complaints.

1. You deleted this paragraph that I believe is the meat of the issue. This paragraph represents standard (and pretty basic) economic analysis:

   "However, four points can be raised against this argument. First, in the context of a mature technology such as oil, increased efficiency usually reduces use of the resource, as the associated increase in demand for the good or service produced is small.[1][2] Second, even if increased efficiency does not reduce the total amount of resources used, this ignores the additional benefits associated with increased efficiency and increased use. For example, a more efficient steam engine allowed the cheaper transport of goods and people that contributed to the Industrial Revolution. Third, in the context of peak oil, since oil is a diminishing resource its price will continue to rise. As such, the use of oil will decrease despite any increased efficiencies. Fourth, if one views oil price increases as an adverse effect of peak oil, increased efficiency will slow down the rise in oil prices, thus reducing the problems created by peak oil."

2. You reverted my correct edits about efficiency having both positive and negative effects on quantity used (this is standard economic terminology), and about the price elasticity of demand being the determining factor on which effect predominates.
3. Also, it is not really debatable that increased efficiency usually reduces resource use in mature technologies / developed economies. There has been much research on the subject. Your edit that implies that it as just one person's opinion is misleading.
4. The opinion of author and magazine columnist Andrew Potter should not be presented on an equal basis with accepted fact based on peer-reviewed academic journal articles.

I certainly welcome any edits for readability and logic. However, I would like wikipedia articles to reflect current consensus in the relevant scientific community. Not all views deserve the same weight, see WP:UNDUE. --lk (talk) 06:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

For #1, I did not delete that paragraph. I did edit the paragraph, but I think that only the first sentence ("However, four points can be raised...") was missing. The idea that four, and exactly four, points can be raised is WP:OR and unsupported by references. There are probably other points that can be raised as well, and if so that's all the more reason to remove it. I did rephrase the second sentence, as I mentioned in my list: "Lorna Greening argues that the Jevons paradox is rare for mature resources like oil, as the increase in demand associated with greater efficiency is small." I thought the reword, which attributes the thought more directly and avoids the wordiness of "in the context of..." without actually losing the context (in my version, "...for mature resources like oil").

My mistake, on a cursory glance it appeared that my edits had been reverted to the previous version. I will remove the '4 points'. It's left over from a previous editor who had '2 points'. If you can improve the wording further, please do.

For #2, that terminology is not standard. The standard of economics is non-normative analysis, in which facts are considered but judgments on the goodness or badness of a situation are left out. The use of "positive and negative effects" is inappropriate for both non-normative economic texts (the large majority) as well as for an encyclopedia.

Positive and negative here are not normative statements. They mean positive and negative as in 'plus' and 'minus'. I don't really know how to change it to say the same thing without using the words positive and negative. Perhaps use 'increases and decreases', but I don't see how to form a simple sentence like that. The sentence should say that there are two effects that go in opposite directions, one effect increases resource use and another effect decreases resource use. Any suggestions?

For #3 perhaps my wording is poor and you can help me improve it. (This is the kind of thing I'd like to work out with you.) I myself believe that increased efficiency almost always reduces the use of resources -- I think Jevon's paradox is rare, and well-named as a "paradox". But I'm not supposed to write my own opinions into Wikipedia, so I let reliable sources make their own arguments. I'm not sure what you're suggesting, though; I didn't add the Potter reference, and probably would not have included it because it seems like a minority opinion not worth the mention here (though probably worth mentioning at Rebound effect).

"Lorna Greening argues" is inaccurate. It's not her who's of this opinion, she (and her 2 co-authors) just did a survey article summarizing the work of many other researchers. It's pretty accepted in the academic community that increases in efficiency usually reduces resource use in developed markets.

For #4, ditto. I didn't add the article. If you're trying to have the citation removed I won't stop you -- though I generally prefer to leave in a counterargument when it's appropriately supported and written. I couldn't actually tell you that it is -- I haven't read the Potter article.

I'm ok with it as it stands. It does look a bit odd, but someone must have thought it was important enough to put there. I just wanted to put it into context, that it's an unsupported view from someone not trained in economics.

I heartily agree on undue weight. Again, I didn't add the Potter reference and didn't write anything about it (I left the wording on that reference as it was). I did put it adjacent to the Greening reference, because they're talking about the same thing and so should be together. To put it another way: if the two are apart in the article, one could get the wrong impression when reading the Potter/heterodox part without the Greening/orthodox view.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I guess I over reacted, for that I do apologize. But try to see it from my point of view. I thought I saw my edits reverted, after I spent a couple of hours researching and reading and finally writing them. And then, right after I had asked for discussion first before further action, I saw them reverted again. I'm usually quite good about keeping cool, but it was late at night, and ... well you get my drift. I guess the moral of the story is, 'don't touch that revert button'. --lk (talk) 15:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hetrodox and reference

Thanks for the reference, Lawrencekhoo. I recall you mentioned that the Greening reference showed that the Potter article was out of synch with the mainstream, but having not read it I wasn't comfortable adding it as a reference there myself. (There's some guideline on this, and in general it's intellectually shady to use a reference you haven't read.) Thanks.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

If you're interested, you can read the abstract of the paper in the following link. It's a survey article, so a good article to start with. I've also added another reference that's available online. There are a bunch of articles about the rebound effect in journals, but you gotta visit the library to read them. I've seen estimates between about 5% to 75%. Anyway, the Potter hyphothesis is quite obviously wrong. It postulates that the rebound effect is 100%. But why 100% from possible values from 0% to infinity? No real reason is given. --lk (talk) 18:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4090S0W-4/2/a9168f95d980746691a756947e935f26

I've read a fair number of papers on the topic, just not the Greening article. The abstract doesn't really say anything; I'd need to read the methodology section to get anything of value from it. How things are measured has a tremendous effect on what conclusions can be drawn from the research.

Actually I've been thinking about how to add other examples of the Jevons paradox to our article, beyond just energy consumption. One obvious choice would be cotton after the cotton gin in the US. Any thoughts of yours (or anyone's, for that matter) would be welcome.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of the 'Jevons paradox'

I need to clarify what exactly this entails. Let's take a simple example of light bulbs. If I get more energy efficient bulbs (though the cost of their production and product lifespan also needs to be taken into account), I use less energy. So it would seem that if everyone installed these new light bulbs, less energy would be consumed. However, because they use less energy, they are also cheaper to use, so people might use lights more than they otherwise would. In this case though, lighting is fairly cheap, so if we use lightbulbs that are twice as efficient we probably won't expect to see twice as much use of light bulbs (maybe a little more, but probably not a big increase). As I understand it, this is the sort of thing that the concept is about. However, would it extend further: we are now spending less on light bulbs, but with the money saved people spend it on something else that consumes energy.

Another conceptually related idea: if I don't use this resource, somebody else will instead (which in reminds me of Hardin's life boat ethics). Do any of these extensions fall under the Jevons paradox blanket? If not, what to call them? Richard001 (talk) 04:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Resources do not just sit there waiting to be used, so the argument 'if i don't use it someone else will' does not make sense. Let me try and clarify. It is costly to extract resources, so the relevant question is whether an improvement in technology will reduce or increase the price at which a resource trades. If it increases the price (from more demand) then more will be extracted , if the price of the resource falls, then less will be extracted and hence more is conserved. It all depends on whether improvements in technology increase or decrease demand for a resource. And this depends on the price elasticity of demand for the good, and other conflating factors. lk (talk) 09:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The argument 'if I don't use it somebody else will' makes perfectly good sense (and is related to the idea 'if I don't spend my money on X, I'll spend it on Y, so it will make little difference in terms of conservation of resources'). If I don't use a certain resource, it's not going to fly away. It will be there for someone else to use, and they will use it. If I had have used it, it wouldn't be there for them. But either way, it ends up being used, so one can argue 'if I don't do something, somebody else will do it'. [It's easy to confuse fact with value (value as in ethics, not economic value) in a case like this too; take my statements as matters of fact (i.e. not 'therefore, I ought to consume this resource'). If you think one implies the other, try something like 'if I don't take part in the gang rape of this woman, one of the other guys will, so what difference does it make?]

In terms of the money case (i.e. taking the broadest view), the only ways to avoid the rebound effect is if people spend less money as a result of things being cheaper, i.e. they work less, or they spend it on something that uses less resources (possibly spending the extra money on organic food rather than on more unsustainably produced food?). Actually, I'm not even sure on that one. I'm finding this one difficult to fully get my head around. Richard001 (talk) 09:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Richard, you are conflating 2 issues. We should discuss only one at a time. First, the Jevons Paradox, has to do with the rebound effect being larger than 1, so that advances in efficiency lead to more resource use. If this happens, the price at which the resource trades at will go up. Otherwise, more effort will not be put into extracting a resource. Only if improved efficiency causes resource prices to rise, will more be extracted and used. Second, you are also making a type of system wide argument, that somehow in the whole system, everyone together must always use the same amount of resources no matter what happens to technology. There are many problems with such an argument. Suffice to say that in no economics textbook is such a principle mentioned. And so, it would be inappropriate to state as such in a wikipedia article. Full disclosure, I'm an econ prof., so you know where I'm coming from. I'm wary of discussing this further on the talk page. If you really want to pursue this, perhaps we can converse on our respective talk pages. lk (talk) 06:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I was wrong. There is a system-wide macro argument about the effect of efficiency on energy use. Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate argues that improved energy efficiency tends to increase economic growth which in turn increases energy use. Note that this is only valid for energy use, as improved efficiency for any other resource will have negligible effects on economic growth. I've edited this article to include the Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate. lk (talk) 13:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Rebound Effect?

Discussion is over at the Rebound effect (conservation) talk pages. lk (talk) 08:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)