Katherine A. Kiel () (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross) Victor Matheson () (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross) Kevin Golembiewski (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross)
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In 1980, Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon placed a famous bet on whether the prices of a bundle of natural resources would rise or fall over the ensuing decade. Simon won the bet as the real price of the bundle fell significantly, and the result of this bet has been taken as proof that technological progress is likely overcome any Neo-Malthusian concerns about natural resource scarcity. Contrary to the popular perception, however, an examination of the price history of the identical bundle of goods from 1900-2007 shows that Ehrlich and not Simon would have won a majority of the bets over the past century and would have done so by a wide margin.
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Paper provided by College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
0908.
Find related papers by JEL classification: Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply
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