{"id":204670,"date":"2025-01-28T02:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/jevons-paradox"},"modified":"2025-01-28T02:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:27:12","slug":"jevons-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/jevons-paradox","title":{"rendered":"Jevons paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

In economics, the Jevons paradox<\/b> (\/ \u02c8 d\u0292 \u025b v \u0259 n z \/<\/a> ; sometimes Jevons effect<\/b>) occurs when technological advancements<\/a> make a resource<\/a> more efficient<\/a> to use (thereby reducing the amount needed for a single application), however, as the cost of using the resource drops, overall demand increases<\/a> causing total resource consumption to rise. [ 1 ]<\/a> <\/sup> [ 2 ]<\/a> <\/sup> [ 3 ]<\/a> <\/sup> [ 4 ]<\/a> <\/sup> Governments have typically expected efficiency gains to lower resource consumption<\/a>, rather than anticipating possible increases due to the Jevons paradox. [ 5 ]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons<\/a> observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological progress could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption. [ 6 ]<\/a> <\/sup> [ 7 ]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The issue has been re-examined by modern economists studying consumption rebound effects<\/a> from improved energy efficiency<\/a>. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use, improved efficiency also lowers the relative cost of using a resource, which increases the quantity demanded. This may counteract (to some extent) the reduction in use from improved efficiency. Additionally, improved efficiency increases real incomes and accelerates economic growth<\/a>, further increasing the demand for resources. The Jevons paradox occurs when the effect from increased demand predominates, and the improved efficiency results in a faster rate of resource utilization. [ 7 ]<\/a> <\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In economics, the Jevons paradox (\/ \u02c8 d\u0292 \u025b v \u0259 n z \/ ; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological advancements make a resource more efficient to use (thereby reducing the amount needed for a single application), however, as the cost of using the resource drops, overall demand increases causing total resource consumption to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,1497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}