UTES - Energy: The Key to Understanding Economic Growth - Tiago Domingos

A central puzzle in the theory of economic growth is that essentially all of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is paid to capital and labour, the conventional primary factors of production, but the change in these two factors leaves most GDP growth (i.e., economic growth) unexplained. Energy use, correctly measured, is the key factor in explaining this unexplained residual. This allows us to understand the role of the successive industrial revolutions in creating economic growth and why growth in the more advanced economies has stagnated in the last decades (the so-called secular stagnation).

Dr. Tiago Domingos, M.Sc. in Engineering Physics (IST) and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering (IST), is an associate professor in Environment and Energy at IST, University of Lisbon. He teaches or has taught courses in Thermodynamics, Modelling, Economics and Sustainable Development. His main research areas are Ecological Economics and Ecological Modelling. He is president of MARETEC – Marine, Environment and Technology Centre, coordinator of the IST Platform for Environmental Science and Technology and coordinator of the Integrated M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering. He is founder and CEO of Terraprima – Environmental Services, an IST Spin-off.