Bolivia’s Green National Accounts through a Commodity Super Cycle

This paper explains the concept of integrated environmental-economic accounts, also called Green National Accounts. It then presents updated results for key indicators from Bolivia’s Green National Accounts during the period 1990-2015, which covers an entire Commodity Super Cycle. The first half of this period includes the Great Commodities Depression while the second half is characterized by an unprecedented commodities boom. Results show that the contribution of ecosystem goods and services to the Bolivian economy remain relatively stable over the cycle, while the contribution of non-renewable resources increases by a factor of four between the bottom of the cycle (1993) and the top of the cycle (2011). Similarly, the differences between conventional Net Capital Formation and Environmentally-adjusted Net Capital formation is small at the bottom of the Commodity Super Cycle (2.3% of GDP) but much larger at the top of the cycle (7.7% of GDP). These results were calculated following the United Nation’s SEEA 2003 framework.