Notations. P⁻ and P⁺ is energy consumption and energy production in 2005 (10¹⁵ btu/year), respectively; N_tot is total population of the country (thousands of people), N is total number of working people (thousands of people); employment levels in different economic sectors are given as percentage of the total employment N, Food — agriculture, forestry and fishing, Mining — mining and quarrying, this sector includes production of raw materials and non-renewable energy, Manuf. — manufacturing, Electr. — electricity, gas and water supply, Constr. — construction, Trade — wholesale and retail trade, repair, hotels and restaurants, Transp. — transport, storage and communications, Other — other activities, including state employees, military forces and social sector. Numbers in the eight right columns sum up to 100%. Cumulative energy consumption and population of the 28 countries considered constitute 80% and 60% of the global totals, respectively. Countries are ranked in the order of decreasing energy consumption.
Data sources. Population size and employment rate data correspond to year 2005 unless a different year is stated in the first column (e.g., for China these data are for 2002), data are taken from the International Labor Office Bureau of Statistics (http://laborsta.ilo.org), yearly statistics, Tables 1A, 1B, 2B. In cases when population size data were missing at http://laborsta.ilo.org), they were taken from the U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/summaries.html). Energy production/consumption data for 2005 ware taken from the U.S. Energy Information Agency (http://www.eia.doe.gov), 1 btu (British Thermal Unit) = 1055 J.
Employment rates in the food production sector (Food) differ greatly for two groups of studied countries. The first group includes 17 countries with total population of 0.5 billion people mean employment rate in this sector is 4.4% (range 1.1-10.2%). In the second group of 11 countries (India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya) employment rate varies from 15% to 61% with a mean of 33%. According to the formulae of Section 3, in countries from the second group food is sold at cost price. In countries from the first group food is sold at market prices significantly exceeding the cost price. The difference between market and cost prices remains within the distributive network.

To cite this document: Gorshkov V.G., Makarieva A.M., Li B.-L. (2008) Comprehending environmental and economic sustainability: Comparative analysis of stability principles in the biosphere and free market economy. Preprint No. 2754, Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, 50 pp. Abstract. PDF (1 Mb).

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