Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal Metabolism and Jevons’ Paradox for Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland

International agencies and national governments base their energy strategies on gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates and energy intensity goals. Given the complexity of the transition process from a command economy to an open-market economy in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper argues that the use of energy intensity as an objective for the energy policy is overly simplified and suggests that a more accurate governance tool is the combined analysis of economic labor productivity and exosomatic metabolic rates as defined in the Multi-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal Metabolism approach. The cases of structural change in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and Romania are used to investigate the aforementioned claim.

Keywords: energy, Jevons’ paradox, transitional economies, societal metabolism, MSIASM, Romania

JEL Classification: O13, P28, Q4, N7