Exploring the conditions for sustainability with open-ended innovation
🤖 AI Summary
Can open innovation sustain long-term development under finite Earth resources? Method: We develop an endogenous open innovation model integrating dynamic feedback among environmental quality, population dynamics, and technological change, incorporating stochastic technology generation and state-dependent adoption constraints. Contribution/Results: We find that sustainability hinges not on technologies’ direct environmental impacts, but on their dual effects—reducing fertility rates and raising labor productivity—which jointly drive Schumpeterian green technology substitution. The model replicates demographic transition and the environmental Kuznets curve, and reveals that high productivity coupled with low population growth induces a systemic phase transition toward a sustainable equilibrium characterized by environmental steady state and population saturation. This mechanism provides a novel theoretical foundation for reconciling economic growth with ecological protection.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Can sustained open-ended technological progress preserve natural resources in a finite planet? We address this question on the basis of a stylized model with genuine open-ended technological innovation, where an innovation event corresponds to a random draw of a technology in the space of the parameters that define how it impacts the environment and how it interacts with the population. Technological innovation is endogenous because an innovation may invade if it satisfies constraints which depend on the state of the environment and of the population. We find that open-ended innovation leads either to a sustainable future where global population saturates and the environment is preserved, or to exploding population and a vanishing environment. What drives the transition between these two phases is not the level of environmental impact of technologies, but rather the demographic effects of technologies and labor productivity. Low demographic impact and high labor productivity (as in several western countries today) result in a Schumpeterian dynamics where new"greener"technologies displace older ones, thereby reducing the overall environmental impact. In this scenario, global population saturates to a finite value, imposing strong selective pressure on technological innovation. When technologies contribute significantly to demographic growth and/or labor productivity is low, technological innovation runs unrestrained, population grows unbounded, while the environment collapses. As such, our model captures subtle feedback effects between technological progress, demography and sustainability that rationalize and align with empirical observations of a demographic transition and the environmental Kuznets curve, without deriving it from profit maximization based on individual incentives.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Examining whether open-ended technological progress preserves finite natural resources
Modeling how technology impacts environment and population through innovation dynamics
Identifying demographic effects and labor productivity as sustainability transition drivers
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Open-ended innovation modeled with random technology draws
Endogenous innovation depends on environmental and population constraints
Low demographic impact and high productivity enable sustainable dynamics
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