Uneconomic Growth - Good Vs. Bad Growth

Good Vs. Bad Growth

Uneconomic growth often reflects poorly developed or poorly planned growth, rather than growth that is inherently bad. For example, if one assumes that Atlantic hurricanes and Pacific typhoons have intensified in recent years due to human-caused global warming, then a rapid surge in automobile ownership in China, Brazil, and India could be seen as uneconomic growth. This is based on the assumption that significantly increasing the number of internal combustion engines worldwide would increase global warming, and that the economic damage from global warming would more than offset any economic growth brought about from the increase in automobiles; however, if the new automobiles were ethanol-fuelled or battery powered from non-greenhouse-gas-producing energy sources such as solar, wind, or nuclear instead of petroleum-fuelled, the effect on global warming might be very minor and not uneconomic at all. Note that the hypothetical surge in automobiles might be 'uneconomic growth' from a global perspective, but 'good economic growth' from those countries' perspective (an example of an externality).