We develop the rectangular choice-of-technology model with factor constraints, or RCOT, a linear programming input-output model for analysis of the economy of a single region. It allows for one or more sectors to operate more than one technology simultaneously, with the relatively lowest-cost...

This chapter focuses on metals as they provide the clearest example of the challenges and opportunities that mineral resources present to society, in terms of both primary production and recycling. Basic concepts, information requirements and sources of consumer and industrial resource demand...

We develop the absorbing Markov chain (AMC) for describing in detail the network of paths through an industrial system taken by an embodied resource from extraction through intermediate products and finally consumer products.  We refer to this as a resource-specific network. This work builds on...

This paper describes the World Trade Model, a linear program that determines world prices, scarcity rents, and international trade flows based on comparative advantage in a world economy with m regions, n goods, and k factors. Major properties of the model are demonstrated, including the sources...

A classification scheme for household lifestyles, and another for the activities of which they are comprised, are described as a necessary starting point for the analysis of the environmental impact of changes in household consumption. A household's lifestyle is defined by how it carries out the...

This paper argues that resources constitute the fundamental area of overlap between the interests of input-output economists and industrial ecologists. Three misconceptions about input-output economics obscure this fact: the frequent failure to utilize combined quantity and price input-output...

Significant economic disparities among China's Eastern, Central, and Western regions pose unequivocal challenges to social equality and political stability in the country. A major impediment to economic development, especially in the poor, remote Western region, is the shortage of transportation...

Industrial Ecology aims to inform decision making about the environmental impacts of industrial production processes by tracking and analyzing resource use and flows of industrial products, consumer products and wastes. Quantifying the patterns of use of materials and energy in different...