The Twin Hockey Sticks of Technological Change: Applying Barkley Rosser’s Theory of Coupled Systems

Building on Barkley Rosser’s narrative of coupled systems and environmental policy, leading him to recognize the difficulties of environmental policy, this article further develops Koppl et al.’s “twin hockey sticks” theory of economic growth. In this context the mechanism for the virtuous “hockey stick of economic growth” and its “evil twin,” the “hockey stick of environmental degradation,” which arise from the same process of technological change, is elaborated upon. This contribution is situated in Rosser’s understanding of an overarching system whose dynamics are complex, chaotic, and potentially catastrophic.