IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v8y2019i1p19-d197851.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Social Cost of Sub-Soil Resource Use

Author

Listed:
  • Tom Huppertz

    (RDC Environment, 57 Avenue Gustave Demey, 1160 Brussels, Belgium)

  • Bo P. Weidema

    (Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment, Aalborg University, Rendsburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark)

  • Simon Standaert

    (RDC Environment, 57 Avenue Gustave Demey, 1160 Brussels, Belgium)

  • Bernard De Caevel

    (RDC Environment, 57 Avenue Gustave Demey, 1160 Brussels, Belgium)

  • Elisabeth van Overbeke

    (RDC Environment, 57 Avenue Gustave Demey, 1160 Brussels, Belgium)

Abstract

This paper presents a market-price-based method to value sub-soil resources in environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment. The market price incorporates the privileged information of the market agents, explicitly or implicitly anticipating future applications of the resource, future backstop technologies, recycling potentials, the evolution of reserves and extraction costs. The market price is therefore considered as the best available integrated information reflecting the actual values of these parameters. Our method is based on the Hotelling rule and the fact that private agents discount future costs and benefits at a higher rate than society as a whole. In practice, the price of the last resource unit sold is calculated with the Hotelling rule using a market discount rate. Then, the price at depletion is retropolated with a social discount rate smaller than the market discount rate. The resulting corrected “socially optimal” price is higher than the market price. The method allows to calculate the social cost of resource exhaustion, which is applicable in Cost-Benefit Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment. The method is applied to mineral and fossil resources and the results are compared with other recent methods that seek to place a monetary value on resource depletion.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Huppertz & Bo P. Weidema & Simon Standaert & Bernard De Caevel & Elisabeth van Overbeke, 2019. "The Social Cost of Sub-Soil Resource Use," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:8:y:2019:i:1:p:19-:d:197851
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/1/19/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/8/1/19/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel, 2014. "Very long-run discount rates," Globalization Institute Working Papers 182, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    2. Miller, Merton H & Upton, Charles W, 1985. "A Test of the Hotelling Valuation Principle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(1), pages 1-25, February.
    3. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel, 2016. "No‐Bubble Condition: Model‐Free Tests in Housing Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1047-1091, May.
    4. Cropper, Maureen, 2012. "How Should Benefits and Costs Be Discounted in an Intergenerational Context?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-42, Resources for the Future.
    5. Arrow, Kenneth J. & Cropper, Maureen L. & Gollier, Christian & Groom, Ben & Heal, Geoffrey M. & Newell, Richard G. & Nordhaus, William D. & Pindyck, Robert S. & Pizer, William A. & Portney, Paul R. & , 2012. "How Should Benefits and Costs Be Discounted in an Intergenerational Context? The Views of an Expert Panel," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-53, Resources for the Future.
    6. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    7. Robert M. Solow, 1974. "The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 12, pages 257-276, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Arrow, K. & Cropper, M. & Gollier, C. & Groom, B. & Heal, G. & Newell, R. & Nordhaus, W. & Pindyck, R. & Pizer, W. & Portney, P. & Sterner, T. & Tol, R. S. J. & Weitzman, Martin L., 2013. "Determining Benefits and Costs for Future Generations," Scholarly Articles 12841963, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Davis, Graham A & Cairns, Robert D, 1999. "Valuing Petroleum Reserves Using Current Net Price," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 295-311, April.
    10. Weitzman, Martin L., 1998. "Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 201-208, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kollenberg, Sascha & Taschini, Luca, 2016. "Emissions trading systems with cap adjustments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 20-36.
    2. Moritz Drupp & Mark Freeman & Ben Groom & Frikk Nesje, 2015. "Discounting disentangled: an expert survey on the determinants of the long-term social discount rate," GRI Working Papers 196a, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    3. J. Doyne Farmer & John Geanakoplos & Matteo G. Richiardi & Miquel Montero & Josep Perelló & Jaume Masoliver, 2024. "Discounting the Distant Future: What Do Historical Bond Prices Imply about the Long-Term Discount Rate?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-25, February.
    4. Freeman, Mark C. & Groom, Ben, 2016. "How certain are we about the certainty-equivalent long term social discount rate?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 152-168.
    5. Eric Fesselmeyer & Haoming Liu & Alberto Salvo, 2022. "Declining discount rates in Singapore's market for privately developed apartments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 330-350, March.
    6. Knoke, Thomas & Paul, Carola & Härtl, Fabian, 2017. "A critical view on benefit-cost analyses of silvicultural management options with declining discount rates," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 58-69.
    7. Bracke, Philippe & Pinchbeck, Ted & Wyatt, James, 2014. "The time value of housing: historical evidence from London residential leases," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64504, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Barrage, Lint, 2018. "Be careful what you calibrate for: Social discounting in general equilibrium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 33-49.
    9. Fesselmeyer, Eric & Liu, Haoming & Salvo, Alberto, 2016. "How Do Households Discount over Centuries? Evidence from Singapore's Private Housing Market," IZA Discussion Papers 9862, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Cairns, Robert D., 2014. "The green paradox of the economics of exhaustible resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 78-85.
    11. Robert Cairns, 2001. "Capacity Choice and the Theory of the Mine," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 18(1), pages 129-148, January.
    12. Bernard Lapeyre & Emile Quinet, 2017. "A Simple GDP-based Model for Public Investments at Risk," Post-Print hal-01666574, HAL.
    13. John Livernois & Henry Thille & Xianqiang Zhang, 2006. "A test of the Hotelling rule using old‐growth timber data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(1), pages 163-186, February.
    14. Mark C. Freeman & Ben Groom, 2015. "Positively Gamma Discounting: Combining the Opinions of Experts on the Social Discount Rate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1015-1024, June.
    15. Cameron Hepburn & Greer Gosnell, 2014. "Evaluating impacts in the distant future: cost–benefit analysis, discounting and the alternatives," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 9, pages 140-159, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Davidson, Marc D., 2014. "Zero discounting can compensate future generations for climate damage," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 40-47.
    17. Bartolini, Stefano & Sarracino, Francesco, 2018. "Do People Care About Future Generations? Derived Preferences from Happiness Data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 253-275.
    18. Simone Kelly, 2017. "The market premium for the option to close: evidence from Australian gold mining firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(2), pages 511-531, June.
    19. Watkins, G. C. & Streifel, Shane S., 1998. "World crude oil supply: Evidence from estimating supply functions by country," Journal of Energy Finance & Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 23-48.
    20. Christopher J. Amante & Jacob Dice & David Rodziewicz & Eugene Wahl, 2020. "Housing Market Value Impairment from Future Sea-level Rise Inundation," Research Working Paper RWP 20-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:8:y:2019:i:1:p:19-:d:197851. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.