Global structural change and its de-materialization implications

Abstract

Employing World Bank data, this article finds that the observed worldwide transition from industrial to service activity has an insignificant long-term impact on global de-materialization. Unlike earlier studies that focus on actual material flows for specific sectors, this study considers economy-wide sectoral composition changes from 1960 to 1998 for 206 countries, and infers some future scenarios based on observed trends. Sensitivity analysis under alternative assumptions about technological change and average industry material intensity indicates that, unless de-materialization is "weakly" defined, a leveling off of world gross domestic product at some time this century will probably be required to achieve it.