Robert Ayres

Professor Robert Ayres joined INSEAD in 1992, becoming the first Novartis (formerly Sandoz) Chair of Management and the Environment. He was the founder of Center for the Management of Environmental Resources (CMER) which he directed from 1992 to 2000, when he retired. He remains an active member of INSEAD, producing numerous publications on topics ranging from Industrial Metabolisms and Industrial Ecology, through Environmental Policy and Technology Evaluation, Economic Growth and Environmental Regulation, Environmental Economics, to Eco-restructuring.

Professor Ayres holds a PhD in Mathematical Physics from Kings College, University of London, a MSc in Physics from the University of Maryland and a BA, BSc from the University of Chicago. He is an Adjunct Professor of Mineral Economics at Pennsylvania State University and a Visiting Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gotheburg, Sweden. His former positions include, among others, Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and Deputy Leader of the Technology-Economy-Society Program, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. From 1994 to 1997 he was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany.

PUBLICATIONS

• JOURNAL ARTICLES - On the Practical Limits to Substitution - Ecological Economics
• JOURNAL ARTICLES - REXS: A Forecasting Model for Assessing the Impact of Natural Resource Consumption and Technological Change on Economic Growth - Structural Change and Economic Dynamics
• BOOKS - Sustainable Metals Management - Springer
• WORKING PAPERS - Economic Growth, Technological Progress and Energy Use in the US over the Last Century: Identifying Common Trends and Structural Change in Macroeconomic Time Series
• BOOKS - On the Reappraisal of Microeconomics: Economic Growth and Change in a Material World - Edward Elgar
• JOURNAL ARTICLES - A Theory of Economic Growth with Material / Energy Resources and Dematerialization: Interaction of Three Growth Mechanisms - Ecological Economics
• JOURNAL ARTICLES - Accounting for Growth: The Role of Physical Work - Structural Change and Economic Dynamics
• BOOK CHAPTERS - Did the 5th K-wave Begin in 1990-1992? Has it Been Aborted by Globalization. - IOS Press
• BOOKS - The Life Cycle of Copper, Its Co-Products and Byproducts - Kluwer Academic Publishers
• JOURNAL ARTICLES - Exergy, Power and Work in the US Economy, 1900-1998 - Energy
• JOURNAL ARTICLES - The 1.1 Kilogram Microchip: Energy and Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor Devices - Environmental Science and Technology

RESEARCH AREAS

Environmental Economics, Technological Change and Economic Growth, Industrial Metabolism and Industrial Ecology, Eco-Restructuring

TEACHING AREAS

Environmental Economics, Technology and the Environment, History of Technology

INDUSTRY SECTORS

Information Technology