Incentivar el decrecimiento / No incentivar el decrecimiento : 2 Enfoques

Todas las medidas que podamos tomar para reducir las emisiones, tendrán directa o indirectamente un impacto positivo en nuestra economía. Instalar energías renovables, coches eléctricos, mejorar eficiencia energética, impulsan nuestra economía.

No se trata de elegir entre negar los problemas medioambientales y seguir creciendo,o decrecer sacrificando la economía. Ambas opciones son estúpidas. Se trata tomar medidas inteligentes que nos permitan reducir el impacto ambiental al tiempo que impulsan nuestra economía

Devastadora revisión de la literatura sobre decrecimiento (561 estudios):

--> 'pocos estudios utilizan datos cuantitativos o cualitativos...'
--> [los que lo hacen] 'tienden a incluir muestras pequeñas o a centrarse en casos no representativos'
-->'la gran mayoría (casi el 90%) son opiniones más que análisis'

Resumen completo:
"En la última década han aparecido numerosas publicaciones sobre el decrecimiento como estrategia para afrontar los problemas medioambientales y sociales. Realizamos una revisión sistemática de su contenido, datos y métodos. Para ello se utiliza la lingüística computacional con el fin de identificar los principales temas investigados. A partir de una muestra de 561 estudios concluimos que:

(1) el contenido abarca 11 temas principales; (2) la gran mayoría (casi el 90%) de los estudios son opiniones más que análisis; (3) pocos estudios utilizan datos cuantitativos o cualitativos, y aún menos recurren a la modelización formal; (4) el primer y segundo tipo tienden a incluir muestras pequeñas o a centrarse en casos no representativos; (5) la mayoría de los estudios ofrecen consejos políticos ad hoc y subjetivos, y carecen de una evaluación de las políticas y de una integración con las ideas de la literatura sobre políticas medioambientales/climáticas; (6) de los pocos estudios sobre el apoyo público, la mayoría concluye que las estrategias y políticas de decrecimiento son social y políticamente inviables; (7) varios estudios representan una confusión de "causalidad inversa", es decir. (7) varios estudios presentan una confusión de "causalidad inversa", es decir, utilizan el término decrecimiento no para referirse a una estrategia deliberada, sino para denotar el declive económico (en términos de PIB) resultante de factores exógenos o de políticas públicas; (8) pocos estudios adoptan una perspectiva que abarque todo el sistema, sino que la mayoría se centran en casos pequeños y locales sin una implicación clara para la economía en su conjunto. Ilustramos cada una de estas conclusiones con estudios concretos".

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924002210

1. Introduction

In the last decade there has been a flood of publications on degrowth as a strategy to confront environmental and social problems. This paper reports a systematic literature review to assess their content, data and methods. To evaluate the quality of research and avoid unfair or ad hoc conclusions, it uses various objective indicators and techniques. Among others, we will make use of computational linguistics to identify main topics studied in the literature on degrowth. In addition, we examine which share of reviewed studies goes beyond conceptual discussion and subjective opinions by identifying use of concrete scientific method, notably qualitative or quantitative data analysis and formal theoretical or empirical modelling.

As a fair number of studies use the term “postgrowth” to denote degrowth type of sentiments, we decided to include this as a key term in our search for relevant studies. Even some leaders of the field have used it in their work (e.g., Hickel et al., 2021). While appeals for postgrowth generally emphasise the need to prioritise sustainability and social justice over economic growth, a strict degrowth position goes one step further by advocating for a deliberate reduction in the scale of economic activity to achieve these goals. We find, though, that especially in the last few years the division between degrowth and postgrowth has become a bit blurred. Indeed, many authors writing on degrowth opt for using the catch-term postgrowth, possibly to avoid resistance against the strong connotation of degrowth.

Degrowth thinking considers reducing the size of the market economy as the key strategy to solve environmental problems. As opposed, policy researchers tend to regard ambitious climate policy as fundamental to solving climate change, and likewise ambitious environmental policies as essential to overcome other environmental challenges. To achieve considerable reductions of CO₂ emissions, such policies might result not only in more efficient technologies, substitution between energy sources or a shift to less pollutive goods or services, but also in a lower level of production and consumption of goods and services with a relatively high environmental pressure over their life cycle. In view of this, we will examine if degrowth studies devote attention to received insights about environmental policies, focusing on climate policy. This will, among others, include assessing whether attention is given to policy support and political feasibility of degrowth policies. Indeed, since degrowth proposals arguably respond to insufficient support for ambitious climate and environmental policies, an obvious question is whether these proposals themselves can count on (considerably) more political support. Hence, we will examine if studies refer explicitly to climate policy or its particular instruments, whether this is connected to policy support and feasibility, and if insights from the broader literature on environmental and climate policy are integrated.

Five earlier studies have offered reviews of publications on degrowth. These are rather uncritical, and do not tackle the questions and issues discussed above regarding methods and policy. Cosme et al. (2017) offer a review of 128 studies from 2007 until 2014, aimed at identifying policy proposals by the degrowth movement. They classify proposals in terms of “ecological economics policy objectives” (sustainable scale, fair distribution, and efficient allocation), type of approach (top-down versus bottom-up), and geographical focus (local, national, or international). Of the sampled studies, 54 (42%) provide policy proposals, aligning with three general goals: (1) reducing the environmental impact of human activities; (2) redistributing income and wealth; and (3) promoting a transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society. In addition, the proposals are found to reflect a national, top-down rather than a local bottom-up approach, which the authors find remarkable as the latter type is strongly advocated by degrowth proponents. A second paper by Kallis et al. (2018) states as the aim to “review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth.”. This is a non-systematic review that covers a diversity of issues ranging from resource limits through technologies compatible with degrowth views to social movements. It refers to 150 studies in its list of references. A third paper by Vandeventer and Zografose (2019) mixes a review (of 179 studies from 2008 until 2016) with other issues (notably how to integrate degrowth as anti-capitalism with the multilevel perspective on sustainability transitions), and it focuses on bibliometric analysis studying author citation networks. A fourth study by Fitzpatrick et al. (2022) is focused on policies. It reviews 1166 texts (articles, books, book chapters, and student theses) from 2005 until 2020, of which 446 are identified as including degrowth-policy proposals, divided over 13 themes: food, culture and education, energy and environment, governance and geopolitics, indicators, inequality, finance, production and consumption, science and technology, tourism, trade, urban planning, and work. Finally, Kongshøj (2023) presents a non-systematic literature review referring to 156 studies, resulting in a discussion of challenges for feasibility and desirability of degrowth policies. For a more detailed discussion of some of these reviews see Section 5.2 on environmental/climate policy.

To motivate the relevance of our review, it should be noted that these previous reviews were written by degrowth proponents and looked for positive insights. Ours is different as it adopts a more objective approach focused on assessing data, methods of analysis, and connections with climate/environmental policy studies – which we think is important for judging a new line of research characterized by strong claims about academic and policy relevance.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the search procedure to create the sample of degrowth and postgrowth studies. Section 3 provides basic descriptive information about the sampled studies. Section 4 reports the results of a computational-linguistic analysis of topics in the sample. Section 5 offers an in-depth assessment of the studies, divided into method use, policy analysis, and other issues. Section 6 concludes.

2. Search and selection of studies

The data for this study was obtained from the peer-reviewed literature, using the Scopus database. On the 20th of February 2023 we searched for publications that included the words ‘degrowth’, ‘de-growth’, ‘postgrowth’ or ‘post-growth’ in the title. This search generated 1230 matches. These publications were screened and assessed for eligibility according to PRISMA guidelines. Fig. 1 summarizes the sampling process.

The first step – the screening process – was based on basic information of the studies, such as title, abstract and keywords. We excluded publications written in a language other than English (n = 39), books (n = 14), publications for which a full paper was not accessible (n = 13), duplicates (n = 8) and corrections on previous articles (n = 5). Books were excluded as they tend to provide summaries of earlier published articles and have no consistent abstracts. For a few publications that were accessible but lacked an abstract we used either the full text, provided it was less than two pages, or the introduction section. This resulted in a total of 79 publications being excluded in this step. Next, we assessed the remaining 1151 publications for eligibility based on the study focus.¹ This involved reading the abstract and, if this was insufficiently clear about the study focus, reading the article text as well. We excluded studies that used the terms degrowth or postgrowth in a distinct context or discipline, such as physics, chemistry, biology, engineering or other sciences where the term ‘postgrowth’ has been used in a way that is unrelated to economic/GDP growth. Examples of titles of excluded papers are “post-growth thermal annealing”, “post-growth tailoring of quantum-dot saturable absorber mirrors”, “urban migrants as heterotopic selves in post-growth Japan” and “influence of family TMT involvement on firm growth and degrowth rates”. This criterion led to 590 studies being further excluded, resulting in a final sample of 561 studies. Of these, 473 (84%) use “degrowth” and 88 (16%) only “postgrowth” in their title. In addition, 376 are classified by Scopus as articles, 73 as book chapters and 28 as reviews, while the remaining 84 cover letters, notes, editorials, conference papers and short surveys.

3. Descriptive information about the sampled studies

All the 561 studies in the sample were screened for the presence of formal (mathematical) models and data analysis. As models we understand an original (set of) equation(s) – for instance, we did not count instances like merely applying for illustrative purposes the well-known IPAT equation without any original component, as in Kurz (2019) and Nørgård and Xue (2016). We further distinguish between theoretical (whether analytical or numerical) and empirical (or applied) modelling studies. The distinction is that the former do not employ empirical data for their parametrization/calibration/validation, while the latter do. Overall, 9 studies (1.6% of the sample) used a theoretical model, and another 8 (1.4%) employed an empirical model. As for data analysis, several studies in the sample presented qualitative results mostly derived from interviews. We distinguish such qualitative data analysis from quantitative data analysis in which empirical data is statistically processed into indicators or graphical output. We did not include here studies that provided a verbal argument adorned with some tables or graphs (often from other sources) or very simple plots (like GDP or population over time) as they do not represent original quantitative analysis (for details and illustrations, see Section 5.1). In total, 31 studies (5.5%) in the sample performed quantitative data analysis, and another 23 studies (4.1%) qualitative data analysis.² The amount of data and the complexity of the analysis differed among publications. For example, Kalimeris et al. (2014) undertook a meta-analysis of 158 studies published on the energy-GDP causal relationship while many other studies involve just a dozen or so interviews (Ruiz-Alejos and Prats, 2021; Buhr et al., 2018; Nierling, 2012). It is worth noting that all studies have been attributed to only one method category.

The top plot in Fig. 2 shows the distribution of studies over time (publication year), showing a rising trend. Moreover, as indicated by the red line, ten years ago virtually all studies used the term “degrowth”, while in recent years some 25% of studies use the term “postgrowth”, in most cases meaning degrowth.³ The lower plot in Fig. 2 shows that the fraction of studies undertaking modelling or data analysis fluctuates in the range of 0–15% over time and shows no clear trend.

Table 1 lists ten journals that appear most often in the sample. The two by far most popular outlets are Ecological Economics (EE) and Journal of Cleaner Production (JCP). One reason may be that both published special issues on degrowth: one in EE and three in JCP. In total, the sample of studies we review contains 14 special issues, covering 100 out of 376 journal articles (26%). The most cited journal in the sample is Journal of Sustainable Tourism followed by Sustainability Science, EE and JCP.⁴

Table 1. Ten journals with highest number of publications in our sample.

Journal	Number of studies published	Number of special issues	Average number of citations per year	% studies with empirical models/theoretical models/quantitative data/qualitative data
Ecological Economics	63	1	7.27	3.2 /7.9 /3.2 /3.2
Journal of Cleaner Production	56	3	7.18	0/ 1.8 /17.9 /3.5
Futures	19	1	4.32	0 /5.3 /10.5 /0
Journal of Political Ecology	18	0	2.37	0 /0 /0 /11.1
Sustainability (Switzerland)	17	0	1.93	11.8 /0 /0 /5.9
Sustainability Science	16	2	7.56	0 /0 /0 /6.3
Environmental Values	16	1	4.81	0 /0 /6.3 /6.3
Capitalism, Nature, Socialism	14	0	2.23	0 /0 /0 /0
Local Environment	10	1	4.18	0 /0 /0 /30
Journal of Sustainable Tourism	8	1	10.16	0 /0 /12.5 /0

The only journals that have published theoretical model studies of degrowth are EE, JCP and Futures. Empirical models have appeared relatively often in Sustainability (Switzerland) and EE. Quantitative data analyses are mostly found in JCP, Futures and Journal of Sustainable Tourism and to a lesser extent in Environmental Values and EE. Studies using qualitative analysis appear in virtually all outlets, except Futures, the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism and Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

According to Table 1, articles with models and data analysis seem to be cited slightly more often. To confirm this, we measured statistical correlations between citations per year and use of method. In addition, we correlated the number of words in the title with the year of publication to see if studies with shorter titles or more recent studies are cited (annually) more often, e.g. due to a growing number of academic journals and rising impact factors. We find no significant association between modelling or data analysis and the number of citations (see Fig. A1 in the Appendix). More recent papers have longer average titles, and these often co-occur with empirical modelling or data analysis. In contrast to what has been found for other areas of research (Letchford et al., 2015; Savin and van den Bergh, 2021; Savin, 2023), degrowth studies with shorter titles do not receive more citations. Finally, we observe that studies published more recently received on average fewer citations per year.

A total of 18 articles (17 from Sustainability (Switzerland) and one from Biomedicine) in the sample of studies are published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), which is widely considered to be a predatory publisher (Ángeles Oviedo-García, 2021; Siler, 2020). In addition, the Journal of Cleaner Production (56 degrowth studies) was considered by Web of Science/Clarivate as intermediate between regular and questionable in the period that many degrowth studies appeared in it.⁵

Finally, authors' affiliations cover 60 countries (Fig. 3), with the UK, Spain, and Germany being the top three, leading by a big margin. If we limit the sample to only studies with “degrowth” in their title, the order changes slightly to Spain, the UK and – at some distance – Germany (see Fig. A2 in the Appendix for a visualisation). This is in line with the finding by King et al. (2023) that degrowth/postgrowth views are more popular among scientist from OECD countries with a high per capita GDP, particularly in Europe, while outside the OECD support is limited.

4. Computational linguistic assessment of degrowth topics

Here we reveal hidden structure in the textual data of titles, abstracts and keywords of publications in the sample of degrowth studies. To this end, we use the approach of topic modelling, which clusters words into topics based on how often any pair of words appears in the same texts (Blei, 2012; Savin et al., 2022a). Since our texts are relatively short (median length is 192 words), we apply structural topic modelling (STM, Roberts et al., 2019) as it was designed specifically for short texts and allows processing of additional information about publications. In our case, this focuses on year of publication, number of citations per year, and method (theoretical/empirical model and qualitative/quantitative data analysis). Using additional data as covariates in estimating a topic model has proven to produce topics with higher predictive power and interpretability (Roberts et al., 2014). To apply STM, we use the associated R module by Roberts et al. (2019). See the Appendix for details on data preparation and selection of the optimal number of topics.

The resulting topics are presented in Table 2 and visualised in Fig. A4 in the Appendix as word clouds. The table suggests concise topic labels capturing the message from the titles, abstracts and keywords of the top twenty documents with the highest prevalence for each topic. Also mentioned are the most frequent and exclusive words for each topic as well as the title of an illustrative paper with the highest prevalence of the topic. Topic shares in the sample range from over 15% for Environmental justice to less than 5% for Scenarios on emissions neutrality.

Subsequently, we undertake regression analysis, to examine associations of topic prevalence with the year of publication. The results in Fig. A5 in the Appendix show that Topics T3 on Urban/local practices, T6 on Green transition and T11 on Scenarios for emission neutrality gained popularity over time, while Topics T2 on Sustainable wellbeing, T5 on Circular economy, T7 on Conceptual framework, and T8 on Limits and scarcity have become less popular over time. Next, Fig. 4 on citations per topic indicates that studies focusing on Topics 2 and 11 (Sustainable wellbeing and Scenarios for carbon neutrality) are cited considerably more than the average study in the sample. Topics 3 and 10 (Local/urban practices and Historical lessons) are the least cited.

Fig. 5 presents the results of statistical association of topic prevalence of studies in the sample with the use of theoretical/empirical modelling or quantitative/qualitative data analysis. We find that studies focusing on Topics 2 and 5 (Sustainable wellbeing and Circular economy) are significantly more likely to use theoretical and empirical modelling, while T11 on Scenarios for carbon neutrality contains especially empirically calibrated models. In addition, T9 on historical lessons includes both types of modelling. Studies focusing on Topics 2 and 3 (Sustainable wellbeing and Urban/local practices) are more likely to contain qualitative data analysis, while quantitative data analysis is more common for studies in T2 (Sustainable wellbeing) and T9 (Sustainable tourism). Topics T1 on Environmental justice, T4 on civil society, T7 on Conceptual framework and T8 on Limits and scarcity are least likely to use any type of modelling or data analysis.

5. In-depth assessment

5.1. Model and data-analysis studies

Here we discuss use of the four methods in the sample and briefly comment on specific studies to illustrate their approach, relevance and quality. More detail is provided in Table A1, Table 4 in the Appendix, one for each method: theoretical modelling (9 studies), empirical modelling (8 studies), quantitative analysis (31 studies) and qualitative analysis (23 studies).

5.1.1. Theoretical modelling

Only nine degrowth studies use theoretical modelling (Table A1). According to Andreoni and Galmarini (2014) this may be explained in two ways: ideological rejection by degrowth supporters of formal framings, and existing studies using growth modelling excluding attention for degrowth strategies. The nine theoretical studies deal with a variety of research questions within T2 on Sustainable wellbeing and T5 on Circular economy: worktime reduction, slowdown of obsolescence of goods, universal basic income (UBI), identifying (de)growth path under status seeking and voluntary simplicity and sharing. Overall, we judge few of these theoretical modelling studies as scientifically and policy relevant. One reason is that 3 of the 9 papers have the same author (Heikkinen) who writes very mathematical papers with results that are not easy to interpret in terms of meaning or critical dependence on assumptions made; e.g., one draws the conclusion that “Green growth can take place during degrowth” – a contradictio in terminis (Heikkinen, 2020). Other studies are also very abstract and difficult to judge: one by Germain (2017) uses the confusing term “voluntary degrowth policies” which seems an unclear twist of the notion “voluntary action” (in the absence of policies) and confusingly proposes “a tax on the natural resource” to be a degrowth policy. Another is by Andreoni and Galmarini (2014), whose many concepts (reciprocity work, wellbeing equation, health and social capital) and equations overwhelm the reader as they are not all clearly defined or motivated. Moreover, these model studies do not refer to each other nor do they try to build bridges with the enormous literature on modelling growth and environment.

On a positive note, some of these studies provide a rare macroeconomic and systemic perspective on the overall impacts of degrowth strategies, which is missing in much of the rest of the literature which has a strong focus on local issues and therefore does not contribute to the big picture. Two of such studies are: Oberholzer (2023) who concludes that worktime reduction means a threat to macroeconomic stability; and Malmaeus et al. (2020) who finds that UBI is less compatible with a labour-intensive local self-sufficiency economy than with a capital-intensive, high-tech economy. Having good insight into the systemic and macroeconomic consequences is indeed critical for judging radical strategies as proposed by the degrowth community. Against this background, the theoretical model study by Bilancini and D'Alessandro (2012) is one of the more valuable ones as it accounts for multiple externalities and compares three different policy regimes. For further discussion of a systemic perspective, see Sorman and Giampietro (2013) who, among others, argue that degrowth studies ignore the population factor and indirect effects of voluntary restraint.

5.1.2. Empirical modelling

Regarding empirical modelling studies, the eight in Table A2 are quite diverse, relating to the topics T2 on Sustainable wellbeing, T5 on Circular economy, and T11 on Scenarios for emission neutrality. More specifically, they address issues like energy pathways for Ecuador, food supply, a circular bioeconomy, degrowth policies in the European Union, the relationship between embodied energy intensity and labour productivity, the impact of degrowth strategies on international carbon leakage, and the socioeconomic and climate impacts of low growth of the Canadian economy. Some findings are: a shift towards five labour-intensive service sectors would result in small reductions in overall energy use because of indirect energy use (Hardt et al., 2020); reducing and redistributing income alone leads to limited greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation from agriculture and land-use change while a needs-based food system combined with efficient resource allocation through complementary carbon pricing will be more effective (Bodirsky et al., 2022); substantial reductions in GHG emissions by Canada cannot be achieved by improving GHG intensity alone but requires a lower scale of the economy which will result in a reduction of GDP by about 50% (Victor, 2012); and degrowth reduces leakage by keeping the sectoral composition of the country stable and reducing uncommitted countries' incentives to shift towards more energy-intensive production techniques (Larch et al., 2018). While the latter study seems original and relevant, its approach and assumptions are hard to understand, also as their own “structural gravity model” deviates from traditional equilibrium and trade models commonly used for tackling trade and relocation impacts (of non-harmonized policy) that give rise to carbon leakage (King and van den Bergh, 2021).

Two other studies, by D'Alessandro et al. (2020) and Nieto et al. (2020), are worth mentioning. These do not form part of the sample as they do not use the terms de(−)growth or post(−)growth in their titles. Both, however, use empirical modelling to examine emission neutrality, which falls within topic T11, while giving attention to degrowth or negative growth scenarios. Among all topics, T11 attracted most attention in studies using empirical models (Fig. 5), while it is also the most cited topic in the sample (Fig. 4). D'Alessandro et al. (2020) show in a macrosimulation model that a degrowth scenario can achieve lower inequality at the cost of a higher public deficit, which questions the political feasibility of such a scenario. Using the global (one-region) integrated assessment model MEDEAS, Nieto et al. (2020) demonstrate that climate goals can be reached by means of negative GDP growth but address neither actual policies that would achieve this nor the political feasibility of such a scenario.

We find that virtually all the theoretical and empirical modelling studies develop models that are not well embedded in the literature, notably contain too many ad hoc elements, and therefore are disconnected from previous model studies. It is also important to stress that many of the modelling studies are not really about degrowth as a strategy but about economic decline as an exogenous scenario (Nieto et al., 2020) or due to external factors or general (policy) scenarios (e.g., Keyßer and Lenzen, 2021; Espinosa et al., 2022) – this one might call a “reverse causality error” (see for more discussion Section 5.3.3).

5.1.3. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis

The quantitative/qualitative analyses are also very diverse, in terms of both applications and sample size (Table A3, Table A4 in the Appendix). Many studies can be questioned regarding representativeness of locality, region or country (see below) – in various instances studies focus on a far-fetched and non-representative case (examples are given further below). The few studies that use large data sets did not generate or collect these themselves but rely on data of a general nature, such as the European Value Study (EVS).

Data analysis is often superficial and incomplete. For example, Dartnell and Kish (2021) on COVID-19 merely plot the time patterns for two variables and then draw far-reaching conclusions. This is characteristic of a lot of “degrowth studies”. To illustrate further, D'Alisa and Cattaneo (2013) claim “the importance of combining time use studies with energy analysis”. However, they then report time use and energy use in separate sections without ever combining the results (e.g., through integrated indicators, correlation or regression) – resulting in an incomplete analysis from which it is hard to draw robust conclusions.

5.1.4. Small and non-representative samples in surveys and interviews

The above list of illustrations includes both older and recent studies, suggesting there is no clear trend. Instead, the problem small and non-representative samples is quite evenly spread over time.

5.1.5. Non-representative case studies

Case studies are popular in degrowth studies. However, the cases often lack a good motivation or are not representative of a relevant regional or national population. Indeed, many degrowth cases involve peculiar areas, such as locations that are remote, small in economic or population terms, with low population density, or without industrial activity.

We also assessed whether degrowth studies that pay attention to policy make use of formal models or quantitative or qualitative data analysis (Section 5.1). We found few such studies. The theoretical and empirical modelling studies tend to study policies at a very abstract level; e.g., Bilancini and D'Alessandro (2012) compare three regimes: a decentralized economy, a planned economy where a myopic planner fails to recognize leisure and consumption externalities but acknowledges production externalities, and a planned economy with a fully informed planner. Other model studies examine general strategies rather than concrete policies; e.g., Germain (2017) studies voluntary action without indicating how to achieve it; Đula et al. (2021) say “four policies were examined: basic and maximum income, work sharing, job guarantee and dematerialization” – but some of these are more targets than policies; and while the title of Larch et al. (2018) suggest a study of climate policy, actually no concrete policy is examined. A minority of the quantitative and qualitative studies mention the term “policy” in their title or abstract, but none really analyses policy impacts; e.g., Buhr et al. (2018) study local policy and planning in a Swedish town, concluding that degrowth-related ideas have not had any significant overall impact on these, but without giving details on concrete degrowth policies. These examples indicate that the (low) frequencies in Table 3 may depict even a too favourable picture, that is, if one accounts for how the notion of policy is interpreted and elaborated.

5.2.2. Attention for policy support in degrowth studies

In addition, we assess if degrowth studies give attention to policy support and political feasibility of degrowth policies. In this context, it is good to note that degrowth proposals may be seen as reflecting a misunderstanding of the fundamental reason for our society insufficiently solving environmental problems – namely a lack of political support for key policies. However, the “degrowth thesis” is instead that current policies do not work, and we therefore need to explicitly degrow our economy by implementing more radical policies (e.g., bans) or even move away from capitalism. However, this is not a straightforward response if such alternatives count on little and likely even less political support than more moderate, conventional policies. To examine this, we scrutinised the reviewed studies for addressing – e.g., through questionnaire surveys – policy support.

Table 3 shows there is extremely little attention for policy support in the reviewed degrowth studies, as indicated by the share of “political feasibility” being 0.7% and terms like “policy support” and “social feasibility” being absent in the reviewed studies. As opposed, the literature on climate policy pays considerable attention to policy support (e.g., Drews and van den Bergh, 2016a, Drews and van den Bergh, 2016b; Kyselá et al., 2019; Ewald et al., 2022; Kallbekken, 2023). The findings of Table 3 are in line with two earlier reviews of degrowth policies by Cosme et al. (2017) and Fitzpatrick et al. (2022): these did not find or discuss any attention for the theme of policy support and political feasibility. Various studies in the sample express concern but do not offer research on policy support. For example, Keyßer and Lenzen (2021) state that “Compared with technology-driven pathways, it is clear that a degrowth transition faces tremendous political barriers” while adding later that not exploring degrowth scenarios may lead to “a self-fulfilling prophecy” as “judging such scenarios as infeasible from the start, they remain marginalised in public discourse”. According to Büchs and Koch (2019) “there are structural barriers to the political feasibility of degrowth”. On the other hand, some surprisingly indicate a lack of understanding for limited support for degrowth: “societal support for a degrowth transition remains for the time being moderate, and it is not well understood as yet why this is the case.” (Koch, 2020).

There are a few studies in the sample, mainly by psychologists, that address topics indirectly related to policy support using quantitative empirical analysis. One, by Avery and Butera (2022) reports two psychological experiments examining how participants emotionally react to a counter-normative pro-environmental minority message of advocating radical degrowth. They find that degrowth strategies are perceived as a threat. A second study by Tomaselli et al. (2021) used an online survey with 1250 Canadian respondents to examine the effect of four message frames about transitioning to a non-growth paradigm: “environmental gain of degrowth, environmental loss of no degrowth, wellbeing gain of degrowth, and wellbeing loss of not degrowth.” The environmental loss frame generated more negative emotions. The study also examined reactions to different terms, where “green economy” and “economic growth” were perceived as favourably (“moving forward”) while “sustainable degrowth” received by far the most unfavourable (“moving backward”) responses, and “steady state economy” and “postgrowth” came out as “neutral” (neither favourable nor unfavourable). A third study by Krpan and Basso (2021) undertook four online studies (N = 2408) in the US and the UK to see if support is affected by labelling, finding support to increase when positive consequences are stressed. What makes this study less convincing is that it is unclear that the terms suggested to be linked to degrowth (“promotion”, “prevention” and “rebirth”) are actually used in the literature on degrowth. A fourth study by Drews and Reese (2018) examined whether the term “degrowth” works well in communication with the wider public. A first test (conducted online, 93 respondents) finds that degrowth elicits more negative affective and emotional reactions compared to post-growth and “prosperity without growth”. The second (200 participants) finds that the effects of labelling on attitudes and voting intentions are relatively small. The authors advise against a careless use of the word “degrowth” in public communication.

Other opinion studies with a broader scope have also examined views on degrowth. However, some of these tend to use overly general questions on growth versus environment, resulting in a weak basis for drawing conclusion about support for degrowth (Ančić and Domazet, 2015; Paulson and Büchs, 2022 – for more details see items on these in Table A3). Others ask more specific questions to capture the different positions and find greater support for green growth and agrowth than for degrowth positions, among citizens (Drews and van den Bergh, 2016a, Drews and van den Bergh, 2016b; Drews et al., 2019; Tomaselli et al., 2019) as well as among experts at the science-policy interface (Lehmann et al., 2022; King et al., 2023). Interestingly, some degrowth researchers in the sample indicate support for agrowth position (Missemer, 2017; Gerber and Raina, 2018; Malerba and Oswald, 2022). Other studies focusing on feasibility tend to have a more limited stakeholder scope which makes them less relevant. For example, to understand the “limited uptake of degrowth discourse in the English-speaking world”, O'Manique et al. (2021) interview 14 Canadian environmental activists, with the conclusion that “class interests – particularly those of fossil fuel companies – are a substantial barrier to realizing degrowth goals”. Despite such a meagre basis, the language in the paper breathes a righteousness, as if there are no doubts at all about a degrowth strategy being the most realistic solution.

5.2.3. Comparison with earlier reviews of degrowth policy

The earlier review by Cosme et al. (2017) focuses on “sustainable scale, fair distribution, and efficient allocation” but did not address effectiveness of emissions reduction and policy support/feasibility. They make the interesting point that “despite the grassroots origins of degrowth—the majority of degrowth proposals published in peer-reviewed journals follow a top-down approach and have a national geographical focus, both in terms of environmental and social protection.” Regarding environment and notably climate change, we feel this makes sense as local solutions tend to lack stringency due to the public-good nature of the problems, which invites for free riding, leakage and rebound. They also note that “the degrowth academic literature is, if anything, more focused on social equity than on environmental sustainability”. Indeed, we would say there is a disbalance in the sense that environmental effectiveness is often sacrificed for social justice. Furthermore, the so-called policy proposals in the literature as documented by Cosme et al. do not all concern actual or concrete policies but general ideas such as “promote changes in consumption patterns”, “decrease the number of appliances and volume of goods used or consumed per household”, “promote restoration of ecosystem”, “promote use of local water sources”, “reduce waste generation”, “certify organic farming”, “reduce production (large-scale, resource intensive)”, “introduce simpler technologies”, “make more green investments”, “promote eco-efficiency”, “reduce energy and material consumption”, “invest in more renewable energy”, and “limit trade distance and volume”. None of these are actual policies, meaning that the notion of “policy” is vague and interpreted with a lot of flexibility. Cosme et al. also identify the problem that there is “substantial overlap between some proposals, in part because of their range in specificity”. To avoid this problem, the mainstream literature on environmental and climate policy has typically focused its attention on more concrete and well-demarcated policy instruments which then allows to make well-informed statements on potential overlap versus complementarity or synergy. The above makes clear that the degrowth literature does not well interact with the mainstream policy literature, raising the question what the degrowth approach really adds – also as some degrowth studies propose mainstream instruments like taxes, cap-and-trade, standards and subsidies. In addition, our review did not come across any degrowth study offering an assessment of potential interactions among policies or instruments. As opposed, the mainstream literature has given extensive attention to this (see, e.g., Bouma et al., 2018; and van den Bergh et al., 2021). In view of the foregoing, more rigorous and comparative studies of “degrowth policies” are needed to warrant the degrowth approach.

The review by Fitzpatrick et al. (2022) is in effect a follow-up of Cosme et al. (with Inês Cosme participating in both reviews). Although fairly broad in scope, it also lacks attention for effectiveness and feasibility of policies. An interesting conclusion of this review is “Degrowth is increasingly popular and associated with more and more policies”, and they count 530 different proposals. Instead, the mainstream policy literature suggests that one needs few but effective policies, for three main reasons: simpler policy-packages are easier to judge and update if effectiveness is low (as one will know which instrument to make more stringent); instruments interact and may show negative synergies or overlap – which is difficult to know and avoid with a multitude of instruments; and because of free riding due to the public-good nature of climate change, we need to harmonize policies as much as possible to have a chance of achieving high policy stringency – which will be more difficult the more instruments we have. Fitzpatrick's evaluation implicitly supports some of these concerns – witness their harsh conclusion “Most proposals lack precision, depth, and overlook interactions between policies.”

The non-systematic review by Kongshøj (2023) discusses challenges for feasibility and desirability of degrowth policies admitting that little is known about degrowth aims and its specific policy proposals. Its conclusions are similar to those of Strzałkowski (2024), namely that “degrowth plays a marginal role in policies”. Both studies lack concrete suggestions on how to change this.

Based on frequency of mentions in studies, Fitzpatrick et al. identify ten core degrowth policies, in descending order: (1) universal basic incomes, (2) work-time reductions, (3) job guarantees with a living wage, (4) maximum income caps, (5) declining caps on resource use and emissions, (6) not-for-profit cooperatives, (7) holding deliberative forums, (8) reclaiming the commons, (9) establishing ecovillages, and (10) housing cooperatives. Most of these are not really environmental/climate policies while those that may be considered as such are not new (e.g., 5 is already implemented by the EU through its ETS), or represent ineffective ways to solve environmental problems (2, 4, 10) (King and van den Bergh, 2017) or may even have the opposite effect (1,3) (Sorrell et al., 2020).

Some studies use degrowth terminology but then propose to solve environmental problems through traditional strategies or policies: innovation (Priavolou et al., 2022), planting trees (Creutzburg, 2022), a tax on the natural resource (Germain, 2017), or a waste tax (Weber et al., 2019). In addition, many degrowth studies suggest that the mainstream focuses on technology as the solution and rejects limits. Kallis (2021) speaks in this regard “a modernist ‘fix’ mentality that searches salvation in technology”. This creates, however, a caricature of mainstream policy, which denies that such policy is really aimed at triggering a combination of changes: technological, behavioural, structural (sector shares and composition of consumption) and scale of activity. The “degrowth interpretation” that mainstream policy excludes scale effects is erroneous. It overlooks that ambitious settings of traditional policies, like cap-and-trade (emissions trading), put a very hard limit on the system that can translate into negative scale effects. Monios and Wilmsmeier (2022) conclude in a study of container shipping that “It follows that a combination of degrowth and efficiency improvements is therefore necessary.” Using the term degrowth for such scale effects is not uncommon in the sample but confusing as it incorrectly suggests that traditional environmental and climate policies are unable to cause scale effects. Finally, this discussion raises the question: what is easier, getting support for ambitious environmental and climate policy that might limit growth – without stressing this in the promotion of such policies as outcomes are uncertain – or getting support for degrowth strategies which explicitly suggest we need to decline income and consumption. Our review indicates that the current degrowth literature has not even addressed this question, let alone has proven that the second is easier.

5.3. Other issues

Here we discuss several other issues that emerge from the review of degrowth studies.

5.3.1. Multiple meanings of degrowth

The sample reflects an enormous diversity of definitions and interpretations of degrowth.

If there is such a great variety of meanings (and the above is just a selection), this likely will hamper clear debate and consistent, cumulative research. Note in this regard also the five distinct meanings of degrowth as identified by van den Bergh (2011): (1) GDP degrowth, (2) consumption degrowth, (3) worktime degrowth, (4) radical degrowth and (5) physical degrowth. One can find multiple instances of each in the sample of degrowth studies. Finally, several studies combine degrowth with unexpected or even far-fetched themes, such as archaeology (Flexner, 2020; Zorzin, 2021; Watson, 2021; Wurst, 2021), crime prevention (Ruggiero, 2022), gluten-free beer (Harasym and Podeszwa, 2015) and Irish unification (Fearon and Barry, 2022).

5.3.2. Inappropriate and colonizing uses of “degrowth”

Many studies refer to degrowth in the title without offering an analysis of it (e.g., Dartnell and Kish, 2021; Fontanari et al., 2021; Akizu-Gardoki et al., 2020; Haller, 2020; Weber et al., 2019; Kalimeris et al., 2014; Infante and Gonález De Molina, 2013; Çakar and Uzut, 2020; Pansera and Owen, 2018). In these cases, degrowth could be removed from the paper without any consequences for the text, analysis or conclusions. Degrowth seems just a term used to attract attention of a wider readership. In this regard, Wurst (2021) notes that “The literature on degrowth is easy to command, and fosters a practice that I've started calling the ‘Google Scholar syndrome’, where a quick search gives the appearance of being thorough, while hiding the enormous bodies of literature attempting the same thing using different terms.” The latter suggests that there is nothing new under the degrowth sun. In fact, several studies deal with topics that can be debated to be in the realm of “degrowth” – they merely relabel existing areas of research, such as on worktime reduction, circular economy (recycling and repair), refurbishing houses, or bioeconomy. These topics or areas were already studied before “degrowth” appeared on the scene. Such relabelling and claiming existing research topics and areas as “degrowth research” is ironic given the plea for “decolonising” in the degrowth community (Hickel, 2021). Incidentally, the literature on sustainability transitions shows similar types of local case studies with energy communities, NGOs, urban stakeholders, etc., and is equally dominated by qualitative research methods using small samples of interviews with selected stakeholders. Many of these studies could equally be labelled as energy studies, urban studies, environmental studies, or as degrowth studies. What's in a name?

5.3.3. The trap of “reverse causality”

Many papers confuse a strategy or planned degrowth with low, zero or negative growth as an unplanned outcome. This can be seen as erroneously reversing the causality (Savin and van den Bergh, 2022). While many defend that degrowth is not about declining GDP, many of these “reverse causality” studies exactly derive positive conclusions about the possibility of degrowth from data showing a stable or declining GDP. This is not entirely illogical given the literal meaning of degrowth is the opposite of economic or GDP growth. Below we illustrate a few of these “reverse causality” studies:

A study by Tokic (2012) mentions next to Japan the huge economic crisis from 2008 to 2012 in Greece as another so-called example of “unplanned degrowth”. Given the huge impacts in terms of unemployment, loss of wealth, income losses, etc. It is hard to see how this can qualify as a good model for the future. In fact, Tokic concludes: “We argue that any early indications of degrowth would cause the stock market to crash, which would trigger further deleveraging (contagion) and a deflation. As a result, the economy would implode, which would eventually allow for a new rapid growth cycle, given the likely extraordinary fiscal and monetary policy response during the implosion. Thus, in our view, degrowth as an explicit strategy option is economically unsustainable and unfeasible.”

A paper by Jackson (2019) gives an interesting twist to the reverse causality by discussing secular limits to growth, i.e. declining rates of economic growth due to diminishing increases in labour productivity. While mainstream economics has identified this as a driver of increased inequality and the rise of political populism, Jackson proposes that rising inequality in advanced economies is the outcome of pursuing growth at all costs. This has hampered technological innovation and contributed to financial instability. Admittedly, some of these statements are ambiguous, but they provide useful hypotheses to test. The key suggestion is that policymakers must accept that low growth rates are “the new normal”. Again, we emphasise that low growth as an outcome is not the same as planned degrowth.

5.3.4. “Degrowth business”

Several studies talk about “degrowth business” which by a newcomer might easily be interpreted as an oxymoron. A selection of studies is:

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A study by Hankammer et al. (2021) examines guiding principles for organisations approaching degrowth, using a two-step approach. Based on a systematic literature review, it derives principles for a conceptual framework. Then the framework is applied to four organisations certified as B Corps (a private certification of for-profit companies of their social and environmental performance) based on company data and interviews. The findings indicate that B Corps implement some degrowth-approaching principles in their organisation, but that tensions regarding growth-orientation remain.
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Schmid (2018) argues that “innovative forms of organising are a crucial pillar of post-growth transitions”, using the term “post-growth organisations” (PGOs). The first half of the paper is a long discussion containing many abstract and cryptic terminology. To illustrate: “practice theories' flat ontology is integrated with a structured notion of diversity as inspired by perspectives on systems, institutional orders and worlds. Nicolini proposes the metaphor of zooming to capture the analytical movement across non-hierarchical scale”. The second part of the paper studies “alternative economies” in Stuttgart. Founders or local representatives of 14 organisations were interviewed. From the brief descriptions one can derive that various offer repair services of some kind or “promote” food waste avoidance, circular economy or open-source hardware and software. It is suggested that “several of the organisations' practices break with growth-based institutions. Open-sourcing, communing, providing low-threshold access, cross-subsidising, and various non-commodified practices transcend capitalist markets.” However, these are hardly activities that will fundamentally change the economy.
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Wiefek and Heinitz (2018) study companies which have joined the Economy for the Common Good, a social movement which identifies the common good as the purpose of economic activity. They argue that companies' values change in line with Latouche's transformation towards degrowth through eight ‘R's: re-evaluate, reconceptualize, restructure, redistribute, relocalize, reduce, re-use and recycle. Based on 11 interviews, they find that the companies’ management is guided by values like fairness, cooperation, diversity, independence, democracy, transparency, and ecological sustainability. This is exemplified by democratic ownership and decision-making structures, cooperative trade relations, a preference for local suppliers and the redistribution of surpluses. Furthermore, for these companies, profits are of reduced significance as an indicator of success. It is stated, as if a shortcoming, that “some companies in our sample do still consider further company growth to be necessary”. However, if these companies are to replace traditional companies in a transition phase, why would company growth be a problem? The authors mention the idea of “Non-growing companies are a prerequisite for a reduction in macroeconomic growth”. This may confuse the company with the system perspective and overlooks changes needed during a transition. It also raises questions about maximum company size. Nevertheless, the authors conclude optimistically “that the [companies] from our sample … bear the potential to support a societal transition towards degrowth.”
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Some attention for “degrowth business” focuses on tourism. Panzer-Krause (2021) examines the sustainability of German tour operators through audit reports. The study is actually more about corporate social responsibility (CSR) certification ‘TourCert’ than about degrowth. The findings reveal that CSR certification does not foster a restructuring of the tourism market “within the capitalist system”, but “can only marginally advocate and diffuse certain elements of degrowth-oriented tourism”.
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One can also find very normative approaches without any analysis, such as “Wake up, managers, times have changed! A plea for degrowth pedagogy in business schools” (Bobulescu, 2021).

A lot of this work give the impression that the solution to environmental and climate problems must come from voluntary action by businesses. However, the cases and findings do not provide much reason for optimism. Perhaps one should accept the aphorism “the only business of business is business” (Milton Friedman) and implement strong regulation to alter the course of firms.

5.3.5. Degrowth and COVID-19

The database also includes several papers trying to establish a connection between degrowth and COVID-19 (Ambrosino et al., 2022; Monios and Wilmsmeier, 2022; Panzer-Krause, 2022). The first paper uses both degrowth and COVID inappropriately. The second paper mentions the term “degrowth” only in its (long) title (“Implementing Translational Research to Understand the Future of COVID-19 and Its Long-Term Consequences: A Degrowth Perspective or the Transformation of a Global Emergency”). The third paper “investigates whether COVID-19 provokes ‘revenge tourism’ after periods of lockdown or whether the pandemic can be used as a chance for a degrowth-oriented restart that forms the foundation for a more sustainable tourism sector”. Not surprisingly, it finds that “neither ‘revenge travel’ nor a degrowth-oriented restart of tourism can be identified.” Next, a study by Dartnell and Kish (2021) examines if the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered “degrowth type of behaviour”. Based on public data on the internet regarding search traffic and financial returns of firms it argues there has been an increase in interest in home-making and small-scale production at the beginning of the pandemic, and a “sustained shift in consumer preference for peer-to-peer e-commerce platforms relative to more-established online vendors”. In addition, these authors suggest a shift to “do-it-yourself” practices through two non-representative cases, namely “home-made facemasks supplied through Etsy”, and “decentralised efforts of the 3D printer community”. The study could have adopted a more critical approach: it is unclear how they can claim sustained shifts in preferences and behaviours in a study lacking long term effects. This fits a general tendency in degrowth studies of conveying hopeful opinions and wishful thinking. However, studies about the link between COVID-19 experiences and support for climate/environmental policy using questionnaire surveys among many citizens do not support such optimism but provide more mixed and nuanced insights (Ecker et al., 2020; Lewandowsky et al., 2021; Drews et al., 2022; Savin et al., 2022b).

5.3.6. Inferences and language in degrowth studies

A lot of degrowth studies are not modest. They draw generalising conclusions that go beyond the limits of the case or sample studied. In line with this, one can find ambitious language in many degrowth studies. Ironic in this regard is the common use of the terms “degrowth scholars” and “degrowth scholarship” (rather than “research(ers) on degrowth”). In addition, degrowth papers have a high frequency of “zombie nouns”, a term coined by author Helen Sword and propagated by Harvard language psychologist Steven Pinker. It involves adding suffixes like ‘ity’, ‘tion’ or ‘ism’ to an adjective or verb. Only in titles we already identified the following ones: “(de-)resourcification”, “decoloniality”, “defashion”, “islandness”, “decommodification”, “productivism”. Other invented terms are spatialising and necropolitics. According to Pinker (2015), they are intended to impress but tend to characterize bad writing and sloppy thinking. A final example: “prefigurative strategy”, which is cryptic but sounds interesting to naive readers. It is further not difficult to find eccentric and cryptic titles among the papers. An illustrative selection is shown in Table 4.

6. Conclusions

Nuestra revisión de 561 estudios sobre decrecimiento arroja las siguientes conclusiones generales: (1) el contenido abarca 11 temas principales, siendo los cuatro dominantes Justicia medioambiental, Bienestar sostenible, Prácticas locales/urbanas y Democracia y sociedad civil; (2) la gran mayoría (casi el 90%) de los estudios presentan opiniones en lugar de análisis; (3) pocos estudios utilizan datos cuantitativos o cualitativos, la mayoría de ellos emplean enfoques cualitativos en lugar de cuantitativos, y muy pocos estudios utilizan modelos formales; (4) el primer y segundo tipo tienden a incluir muestras pequeñas o a centrarse en casos no representativos, siendo el análisis generalmente superficial y careciendo de métodos estadísticos de vanguardia; (5) la mayoría de los estudios ofrecen consejos políticos ad hoc y subjetivos, sin una evaluación exhaustiva de las políticas ni una integración con las ideas clave de la amplia literatura sobre políticas medioambientales/climáticas; (6) hay pocos estudios sobre el apoyo público, la mayoría de los cuales concluyen que las estrategias y políticas de decrecimiento son social y políticamente inviables - los que son más optimistas utilizan preguntas demasiado generales que no captan bien el decrecimiento;

(7) varios estudios representan una confusión de "causalidad inversa", es decir. (7) varios estudios presentan una confusión de "causalidad inversa", es decir, utilizan el término decrecimiento no para referirse a una estrategia deliberada, sino para denotar el declive económico (en términos de PIB) como resultado de factores externos o de políticas públicas;

(8) pocos estudios adoptan una perspectiva sistémica, sino que la mayoría se centran en casos muy pequeños y locales sin una implicación clara para la economía en su conjunto ni una traslación a ella; (9) muchos estudios con el término decrecimiento en su título/resumen, incluidos los que utilizan métodos concretos, no están analizando realmente escenarios o políticas de decrecimiento. Ilustramos cada una de estas conclusiones con ejemplos concretos. Basándonos en la lista anterior, uno se inclina a deducir que el decrecimiento no puede considerarse (todavía) un campo significativo de la investigación académica. Tampoco hay indicios de que las cosas estén mejorando con el tiempo. Encontramos que tanto muchos estudios antiguos como recientes adolecen de muestras pequeñas y no representativas. Esto da lugar fácilmente a resultados y percepciones sesgados para el campo en su conjunto.
La debilidad de los estudios sobre decrecimiento en términos de análisis de datos -ya sean cuantitativos o cualitativos- es comprensible hasta cierto punto. La idea del decrecimiento está tan lejos de la realidad que apenas es posible realizar buenos estudios empíricos. Realizar experimentos con el decrecimiento también es imposible, ya que no se puede aislar una parte de la sociedad del resto y someterla a un régimen económico completamente distinto. Y como se argumenta en la evaluación de los estudios de casos específicos, las experiencias pasadas como en los países comunistas (por ejemplo, Cuba), los países de bajo crecimiento (por ejemplo, Japón) o con COVID-19 no sirven como un buen modelo.

Podría decirse que lo mejor que se puede hacer es la investigación sobre preferencias declaradas y los experimentos de comportamiento. El primer tipo tiende a utilizar preguntas demasiado generales sobre el crecimiento frente al medio ambiente y a concluir con optimismo el apoyo al decrecimiento (Ančić y Domazet, 2015; Paulson y Büchs, 2022). Sin embargo, esto no lo confirman los estudios de opinión que utilizan preguntas más específicas para las distintas posturas (King et al., 2023). De hecho, este último estudio encuentra -en línea con estudios anteriores de tipo similar- más apoyo para el decrecimiento que para el decrecimiento, tanto en general como para la mayoría de los subgrupos. Los pocos estudios psicológicos sobre el apoyo al decrecimiento concluyen que el decrecimiento se percibe mayoritariamente como una amenaza (Avery y Butera, 2022; Tomaselli et al., 2021; Krpan y Basso, 2021; Drews y Reese, 2018).
Es importante conocer bien las consecuencias sistémicas y macroeconómicas de las estrategias radicales de decrecimiento antes de hablar de su aplicación. Demasiados estudios parecen estar dispuestos a emprender un gran experimento socioeconómico con grandes riesgos sin tener una visión de conjunto. Sólo algunos de los 17 estudios que utilizan modelos teóricos o empíricos ofrecen este panorama, y varios de ellos llegan a conclusiones bastante pesimistas sobre las repercusiones o las opciones de las estrategias de decrecimiento

Por ejemplo, Hardt et al. (2020) concluyen que un cambio hacia sectores de servicios intensivos en mano de obra daría lugar a pequeñas reducciones en el uso total de energía debido al uso indirecto de energía, mientras que Malmaeus et al. (2020) llegan a la conclusión de que la renta básica universal, un tema popular en los escritos sobre decrecimiento, es menos compatible con una economía de autosuficiencia local intensiva en mano de obra que con una economía de alta tecnología intensiva en capital. La mayoría de los estudios cuantitativos y cualitativos se centran en cuestiones pequeñas y locales, normalmente con muestras no representativas y muy pequeñas (por ejemplo, a menudo un orden de magnitud de una de unas pocas docenas de entrevistas). Además, muchas de las investigaciones bajo la etiqueta de decrecimiento no son originales, sino que se reducen a reetiquetar y colonizar investigaciones ya existentes, como las relativas a la reducción del tiempo de trabajo, la economía circular, la rehabilitación de viviendas o la bioeconomía. Resulta irónico, dado el alegato a favor de la "descolonización" en la comunidad del decrecimiento (Hickel, 2021).
También identificamos lo que llamaríamos una "paradoja del decrecimiento", a saber, el decrecimiento que surge como respuesta a unas políticas medioambientales/climáticas eficaces que carecen de suficiente apoyo público, mientras que las estrategias radicales de decrecimiento no han demostrado obtener dicho apoyo, y es de esperar que lo consigan aún menos. Además, la eficacia de la mayoría de las estrategias de decrecimiento tampoco está demostrada. De hecho, una reciente revisión de Sorrell et al. (2020) El estudio concluye que las acciones de suficiencia tienen poca influencia en el uso agregado de la energía debido a los rebotes de energía y tiempo, así como a los efectos psicológicos indirectos.

Las conclusiones de esta revisión inspiran varias recomendaciones para mejorar la investigación sobre el decrecimiento:

1.Intentar llegar a un acuerdo sobre el significado exacto de decrecimiento, para permitir una investigación más coherente y acumulativa.

2. Formular hipótesis comprobables sobre el decrecimiento, como "una forma eficaz de reducir las emisiones" o "un factor que domina la eficiencia y los efectos de composición/sustitución a la hora de alcanzar objetivos medioambientales/climáticos", y recopilar datos para comprobarlas.

3. Ser más ambiciosos en la selección de casos de estudio para garantizar que los estudios a escala local o regional sean representativos y puedan generalizarse o ampliarse individual o conjuntamente para ofrecer una imagen global creíble.

4. Emprender más estudios de carácter sistémico para evaluar los efectos económicos, sociales y medioambientales globales e indirectos, especialmente el rebote de la energía/carbono, de las estrategias bien intencionadas.

5. Establecer normas más estrictas sobre el tamaño y la representatividad de las muestras en los estudios empíricos (cuantitativos y cualitativos).

6. Ampliar la investigación sobre el apoyo público y de las partes interesadas al decrecimiento, ya que es su talón de Aquiles.

7. Esforzarse por lograr una interacción y una sinergia más sistemáticas con los campos de investigación existentes (por ejemplo, economía, psicología, estudios políticos), dado que ofrecen una gran riqueza de conocimientos sobre el diseño de políticas medioambientales/climáticas eficaces, eficientes y equitativas, así como sobre su apoyo público.

8.Evitar caer en la trampa de la causalidad inversa, es decir, utilizar el decrecimiento para denotar simplemente el declive económico o la disminución de escala debido a políticas convencionales o factores externos.

Tal vez esta revisión pueda servir para fomentar un saludable grado de autocrítica y modestia en la comunidad del decrecimiento, llamando la atención sobre varias debilidades graves en la forma en que lleva a cabo la investigación.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924002210

"Sin datos, sin experimentos representativos y sin análisis. Suele ser frecuente en "aproximaciones heterodoxas" a cuestiones económicas."Juan F.J.

. En cada país desarrollado las emisiones de CO2 disminuyen con el crecimiento económico. Es debido a la paradoja de Simpson

Pero si se toman todos los datos sin desagregar,y nos eneseñan solo una grafica que les interesa a determinados lobbies o politicos, se observan erróneamente mayores emisiones para las mayores economías.

https://transicionsocioeconomica.blogspot.com/2024/01/tecnologia-vs-decrecimieto.html

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