In many empirical studies on this subject, the role of foreign trade in the transition process is addressed to some extent, usually as proposed within the methodological framework of Material and Energy flow Analysis (see e.g. Bartoletto and Rubio, 2008 Gales et al., 2007) - again, from mostly organic and renewable to more and more non-renewable energy sources, as well as particular changes in land use ( Sieferle et al., 2006 Krausmann, 2001 Kuskova et al., 2008 Erb et al., 2008 Musel, 2009). This transition goes along with specific changes in energy use (e.g. Industrialisation has been described from a materialist perspective as a “socio–ecological transition” ( Krausmann et al., 2008b, Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl, 2007), a process of increasing resource use ( McNeill, 2000 Krausmann et al., 2009) which is accompanied by a shift from mainly organic materials to increasing amounts of mineral resources. The socio–ecological transition was thus accompanied by rising international integration of resource supply. Physical foreign trade increased at a faster pace than domestic resource extraction and consumption. The analysis focuses on the physically most important material groups: coal, wood and cereals, and discusses the role of imports and exports in relation to domestic resource provision and environmental pressures.
fossil fuels and biomass, were the dominant resources in physical foreign trade. In both countries, energy carrying materials, i.e. Physical factors explaining the disparities in structure and volume of foreign trade in the two countries are differences in (1) the temporal patterns of the socio-ecological transition and (2) domestic resource endowments.
Total trade volumes were much higher in the United Kingdom throughout the entire time period, on average by around a factor four. Foreign trade volumes increased in both countries in the long run. For the United Kingdom, the analysis relies on previously published data. For the Habsburg Empire, a new dataset of foreign trade and social metabolism is presented. The concept of socio–ecological transitions is used to analyse the quantitative importance of physical imports and exports for the Habsburg Empire and the United Kingdom in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
0 kommentar(er)
