Michael Harris - Resource Economics

Quantifying sustainable development

Dr Michael Harris’ research focuses on natural resource (‘green’ or ‘environmental’) accounting. His aim is to construct measures of economic activity and growth that properly reflect resource depletion and environmental degradation, in ways not achieved by conventional aggregate indicators, such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He has just completed a significant research project with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on ‘Measuring and Modelling Inclusive Wealth’. This began with a pilot study conducted in regional Australia, in conjunction with a study of Stockholm County in Sweden organised by the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics.

Now that the model from the pilot study is constructed it will be applied to demonstrate sustainable development over time at all levels of government. This work is one of the first attempts to quantify progress in sustainable development using the ‘Inclusive Wealth’ measure. The ultimate goal is for a national measurement program based on a representative sample of Australian regions.

The outcomes of this research are designed for use in policy and resource management circles, demonstrating to policy makers the balance between human capital and infrastructure. Economic policy is typically referenced against movements in conventionally measured economic growth, as captured by GDP.

Governments and their advisors need an analytical and empirical framework for making economic decisions with reference to sustainability goals. Harris’ work seeks to provide that framework.

Two key areas of research are the incorporation of ecological resilience into wealth measures, as well as the exploration of the compatibility of sustainability measures with other decisionsupport tools for economic policy-making, such as benefit-cost analysis.

• Dr Michael Harris’ research