The Macroeconomics of de-growth - Can a de-growth strategy be stable?

Master’s Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Economics - Macro-economics, general, grade: excellent, Berlin School of Economics and Law, language: English, abstract: This paper examines an alternative strategy for sustainability and economic development based on de-growth assumptions. This concept is proposed by ecological economists, who consider there to be a natural limitation on economic growth, imposed by necessary environmental regulation. Moreover they oppose the neoclassical ideas, which are considered as pro growth theories, arguing that economic growth itself does not contribute to the social and economic development, therefore it should not be sustained. Accepting this proposition the author makes an attempt to verify the feasibility of a de-growth strategy for macroeconomic stability, applying a post-Keynesian methodology for analysis. The Kaleckian model is used as the basic approach to derive the model restrictions for the de-growth strategy that maintains macroeconomic stability. The findings of this paper will provide policy recommendations to sustain macroeconomic stability, while taking full account of the degrowth assumptions.