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The Pros And Cons Of Economic Growth As A Policy Objective

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Julian Iacovantuono, Enrico Camia Ryan Adams Introduction to Macroeconomics Section 0013 The Pros and Cons of Economic Growth as a Policy Objective It may seem only normal for most people to assume that economic development should be the main objective for most nations. While this may be beneficial in some cases, economic growth as a main objective definitely has negative consequence as well. One of the main dilemma’s associated with economic prosperity is that it does not take the environment into consideration as a way of calculating and accounting for capital depreciation, instead we only apply what we know as manufactured capital when accounting for capital depreciation (Jonathan M. Harris & Anne-Marie Codur, 2004, p.8). One may argue that long term sustainability of the environment goes hand in hand with economic development. If natural resources could be exploited for profit, then protecting those recourses would be in an economist’s best interests, right? Well, GDP and NDP (the most common methods of measuring economic production) do not take the environment into consideration. We must ask ourselves the question “What about natural capital?” (Jonathan M. Harris & Anne-Marie Codur, 2004, p.8). Production uses up nonrenewable natural resources such as oil, coal and minerals as well as renewable natural resources such as forests and fisheries which are also being depleted or damaged through over-use. We can also look at the waste that is released from the process of

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