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Production-Side Effects and Feedback Loops Between the Micro and Macro Level

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Rethinking Climate and Energy Policies

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Abstract

Research on the rebound effect has so far mainly considered ‘micro-economic rebound effects’ at the level of consumers and households, as well as ‘macro-economic rebound effects’ in the sense of energy efficiency-induced economic growth. This chapter focuses on an area of rebound research that has not yet received sufficient attention, namely on ‘production-side rebound effects’, at the company level, as well as sector-level rebounds at the level of industry branches and markets. The chapter summarises and systematises reasons why companies generate rebounds, distinguishes market- and sector-level rebounds from macro-economic growth effects, identifies a number of ‘feedback loops’ by which production-side and sector-level rebounds multiply or nullify consumer-side rebound effects, and finally discusses some conclusions on the potential quantitative dimension of production-side rebound effects.

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Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to thorough review and helpful comments from Harry Saunders.

With friendly permission by Elsevier Limited, large parts of this article are reprinted from: Journal of Cleaner Production, 2015, Santarius, Tilman: Investigating meso-economic rebound effects: Production-side effects and feedback loops between the micro and macro level. Published online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.055

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic Education and Sustainable Consumption, Technical University of Berlin, Marchstr. 23, 10587, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Santarius

  2. Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Potsdamer Str. 105, 10785, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Santarius

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  1. Tilman Santarius
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Correspondence to Tilman Santarius .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. for Ecological Economy Research, Free University of Berlin and Inst. for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Santarius

  2. Western Norway Research Institute , Sogndal, Norway

    Hans Jakob Walnum

  3. Western Norway Research Institute , Sogndal, Norway

    Carlo Aall

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Santarius, T. (2016). Production-Side Effects and Feedback Loops Between the Micro and Macro Level. In: Santarius, T., Walnum, H., Aall, C. (eds) Rethinking Climate and Energy Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38807-6_5

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