Innovation and Social Learning: An Economic Framework for Sustainable Development in Regional Australia
Presented by Associate Professor Jerry Courvisanos, School of Business, University of Ballarat
Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 1.30-2.30pm in Room B902
Abstract
The seminar develops a broad macroeconomic innovation policy framework for ecologically sustainable economic development that can be applied to Regional Australia. Social learning is the microeconomic adaptive tool at a regional level that enables this innovation policy to become operational.
The increased frequency in Australia of drought and dramatic storms, together with mounting international scientific evidence, has raised the spectre of greenhouse gas emissions significantly deteriorating the economic viability of regional and rural communities. Up until now in Regional Australia, ecological concerns of pollution and resource depletion have generally been part of the overall management approach to agriculture and regional economic development * more successful in some places and some time periods than others, but still part of the existing economic paradigm.
Greenhouse is “the inconvenient truth” that now faces Regional Australia, but its existing economic paradigm is clearly inappropriate for responding effectively and timely to this ecological concern. A completely different economic framework, based on economic activity that is satisficing (under conditions of ecological uncertainty) rather than optimising (under conditions of calculable risk) is required to address the ecological concerns of the future. An ‘eco-sustainable framework’ is developed in this paper which sets out an innovation policy aimed at satisficing goals towards a sustainable Regional Australia. The goals are specified in terms of ecologically sustainable rules in the context of long-term carrying capacities of the Regional Australia ecosystem.
This ‘eco-sustainable framework’ is an attempt to set a policy framework for economic development that integrates social learning based on consistent and workable public policy tools that encourage and support entrepreneurial innovation that is greenhouse ecologically supportive. The seminar concludes by outlining practical applications in regional communities of this framework using concrete examples of ecological-based strategies and their integration into a complete innovation policy that directly addresses climate change.
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