Jevox Paradox

The Jevox Paradox occurs when there is an improvement in the efficiency a resource is used, however the rate of consumption increases due to a rise in the demand.
The paradox is well known, yet policies and plans to reduce total resource consumption assume that an increase in efficiency will lead to a reduction of the use of the resource when it’s the contrary that will happen.
The paradox is more salient in environmental policies; energy consumption has been an excellent example of the Jevox Paradox. Energy efficiency has constantly been increasing, but it has not led to a reduction in energy consumption.
We can think about why this happens and take lessons for other domains in our life.
Increased efficiency makes the resource use cheaper, making it available to a higher number of consumers. We could see Economies of Scale as a purposeful application of the Jevox Paradox. We increase the efficiency of a resource which we are selling, be it a car or a laptop because we hope that making it cheaper will increase the consumption of that resource.

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