Several competing theories explain why pollution per unit of output has been falling in U.S. manufacturing.
The most productive plant or company does not necessarily have the lowest cost per unit of output.
Meanwhile, Greece's unit labor cost (the average cost of labor per unit of output) has increased by roughly 40 percent.
Switching to drip-feed irrigation means that watering becomes more precise, cutting consumption per unit of output.
Over the past few years the volume of raw materials it consumes per unit of output has risen sharply.
Developing countries, he said, consume four to five times more raw materials per unit of output than rich ones do.
In the jargon of economics, the marginal costs per unit of output tend towards zero and the returns to scale are high.
Yet rather than build new gas-fired stations, half as polluting as coal, Britain is spending 14 times more per unit of output on a French nuclear reactor.
According to official estimates, which in China are often overly generous, the country saved only 1.23percentt of energy per unit of output last year.
Developing countries could also make a similar contribution through finding improved ways of achieving economic growth while lowering their emissions per unit of output.
According to the World Bank, Chinese industries use 20%to100%0% more energy per unit of output than their US, Japanese and other counterparts.
