The New Trend In Sustainable Development Theory

The problem of sustainable development comes from the fact the economic development of traditional pattern is constrained by the nature resources and ecology environment. To solve this problem, the two questions must be answered: what is the constraint that the nature resources and ecology environment put on the economic activity of human being? Which criterion of intergenerational equity should be adopted when we tackle this problem? Unfortunately, the answers of them are still in the air.To achieve sustainable development, the modification of economic development pattern is necessary. Neoclassic economists regard technical progress, which root in investment in human capital, as driver for sustaining economic growth. However, Basing on close environment of human society, some economists argue that economic growth on physical scale will stop; finally, human economy must turn into a "Steady State Economics" .Theoretically speaking, the dissipation of rent in use of the nature resources will undermine the foundation of sustainable development for human economy; similarly, the problem of institution will exhaust the nature resources and degenerate ecology environment. Therefore, the failures of market and institution should be analyzed.The measures of sustainable development are helpful to remedy the previous faulty economic development goals. In fact, it makes these measures lose their persuasions that the changes of calculate methods and statistical index can turn the conclusion of the measures upside down. On the other hand, the emergence of the hypothesis of "the Environmental Kuznets Curve" inspirits economists to explain the relation between the environment quality and the degree of economic development from respective viewpoints.The study of sustainable development theory is crucial to China, the developing country with the largest population and the scarce nature resources per capital in the world.