The Influences of Savings and Investments on Sustainable Development and the Role of Information Technology

This chapter investigates how the combination of savings and investments affects economic development and sustainability. This discussion aims to help to understand the role of savings as a support to growth, and how biasing individual decisions on consumption and debt via monetary policies can be a source of economic growth un-sustainability. Information technology helps to optimise the use of resources, but it even makes dangerous policies easier to implement. Section 1 shows theoretical insights into the contribution of savings to growth, and the concept of sustainability; section 2 focuses on the theories that better deal with the sustainability concern and investigates the role of information technology in monetary policy; section 3 shows the growing, positive contribution of e-money to growth and sustainability, and it suggests a new role for the government as advisor within an information-enhanced economy where information technology can play a prominent role; section 4 concludes.