Rising inequality: A material perspective on the Great Recession in the European Union
研究了2000-2020年欧盟27国物质使用模式，发现大衰退后人均资源消耗下降且停滞，但各国间不平等加剧，尤其体现在建筑材料消耗上。
The 2007/8 economic crisis and the global Great Recession led to widespread turmoil and instability. In Europe, unprecedented reductions in per capita resource use were crisis-driven rather than the result of deliberate policies. This study examines material use patterns in the EU-27 from 2000 to 2020, covering the period before and the onset of the Great Recession. We find that average material consumption in Europe decreased and has since stagnated, although this trend is uneven, with growing underlying inequalities, as measured using the Theil index of metabolic rates. The patterns in construction materials especially shape overall resource use trajectories. The role of infrastructure and services provisioning, especially where these are fossil-fueled, emerges as key in understanding these patterns. Geographic groupings of EU member states—Northern, Eastern, Mediterranean, and Central—further explain the inequalities that deepened following the recession. These emerging disparities raise important questions about what underpins the European project in a Union in which growth or sustained wealth in some member states systematically coincides with what can only be described as collapse elsewhere.