The idea of a circular economy, first discussed by Kenneth Boulding in the 1960s and ‘70 s and reintroduced by environmental economists David Pearce and R. Kerry Turner in 1990, is a characterization of how goods and services can be produced and consumed in an ecologically sound and environmentally sustainable manner that meets concerns of overuse of resources, waste management, and climate change, inter alia, through the conscious interlinking of disparate economic activities. The notion of circular and cumulative causation (CCC), through which certain positive and negative effects are promoted and reinforced by positive feedbacks, also is not new. George et al. (2015) have presented a theoretical circular economy model of economic growth that leads them to infer that the maintenance or improvement of environmental quality is incompatible with economic growth. However, Donaghy (2021b) has demonstrated how, when sources of CCC are introduced to the model of George et al., a different conclusion may be reached; CCC may be harnessed to bring about desirable systems properties, such as those of a circular market economy. The present paper reviews the arguments and findings of the latter two studies and extends the analysis by introducing trade between three national or regional economies in an environmentally polluting resource, other materials, and recycling technologies. Results of numerical simulation exercises suggest that there could be gains from trade in terms of progress by multiple economies in aggregate towards an international or interregional circular growth economy. The paper also suggests how aspects of the Pearce and Turner model of a circular economy not presently included in theoretical circular economy models of economic growth (closed or open) can be accommodated.

循环经_通过有意识地将不同的经济活动联系起来，解决过度使用资源、废物管理和气候变化等问题的健全和环境可持续的方式。循环和累积因果的概念（CCC），通过正反馈促进和加强某些积极和消极的影响，也不是新的。乔治等人。（2015）提出了一个经济增长的循环经济理论模型，导致他们推断环境质量的维持或改善与经济增长不相容。然而，Donaghy (2021b) 已经证明，当将 CCC 的来源引入 George 等人的模型时，可能会得出不同的结论；可以利用 CCC 来实现理想的系统特性，例如循环市场经济的特性。本文回顾了后两项研究的论点和发现，并通过引入三个国家或区域经济体之间在环境污染资源、其他材料、和回收技术。数值模拟练习的结果表明，就多个经济体向国际或区域间循环增长经济的总体进展而言，贸易可能会有所收获。该论文还提出了如何适应 Pearce 和 Turner 循环经济模型的各个方面，这些方面目前尚未包含在经济增长的理论循环经济模型（封闭式或开放式）中。