IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dug/actaec/y2014i2p139-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability as a Resource Distribution Constraint

Author

Listed:
  • Mircea Saveanu

    (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide a deeper analysis on the concept of sustainability. In this respect, we make use of the large body of scientific work developed hitherto on the subject. The main focus of the article is the problem of sustainable development under limited resouce constraints. The implications of our research are that sustainability cannot be a function maximization issue (regardless of what quantity would be maximized), due to the fact that sustainability is a functional dependent on three functions, all of which are heavily reliant on capital. Given the fact that capital is limited, one cannot maximize one of the functions, without minimizing another. We conclude, thusly, that sustainability is a constraint on development, at the root of which lies the problem of limited capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Mircea Saveanu, 2014. "Sustainability as a Resource Distribution Constraint," Acta Universitatis Danubius. OEconomica, Danubius University of Galati, issue 10(2), pages 139-151, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:dug:actaec:y:2014:i:2:p:139-151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.univ-danubius.ro/index.php/oeconomica/article/view/2216/2089
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beckerman, Wilfred, 1992. "Economic growth and the environment: Whose growth? whose environment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 481-496, April.
    2. Nordhaus, William D, 1991. "To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 920-937, July.
    3. John M. Hartwick, 1978. "Substitution Among Exhaustible Resources and Intergenerational Equity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 45(2), pages 347-354.
    4. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1974. "Growth with Exhaustible Natural Resources: The Competitive Economy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 139-152.
    5. Ekins, Paul & Folke, Carl & De Groot, Rudolf, 2003. "Identifying critical natural capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2-3), pages 159-163, March.
    6. 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.
    7. John Hartwick, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investment of Rents from Exhaustible Resources in a Two Sector Model," Working Paper 281, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    8. Max-Neef, Manfred, 1995. "Economic growth and quality of life: a threshold hypothesis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 115-118, November.
    9. Hartwick, John M, 1977. "Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 972-974, December.
    10. Hartwick, John M., 1978. "Investing returns from depleting renewable resource stocks and intergenerational equity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 85-88.
    11. Daly, Herman E., 1997. "Reply to Solow/Stiglitz," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 271-273, September.
    12. Ekins, Paul, 2003. "Identifying critical natural capital: Conclusions about critical natural capital," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2-3), pages 277-292, March.
    13. William D. Nordhaus, 1973. "The Allocation of Energy Resources," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(3), pages 529-576.
    14. R. M. Solow, 1974. "Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(5), pages 29-45.
    15. Daly, Herman E., 1997. "Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow/Stiglitz," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 261-266, September.
    16. Hartwick, John M., 1990. "Natural resources, national accounting and economic depreciation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 291-304, December.
    17. Solow, Robert M, 1986. " On the Intergenerational Allocation of Natural Resources," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 141-149.
    18. Joseph Stiglitz, 1974. "Growth with Exhaustible Natural Resources: Efficient and Optimal Growth Paths," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 123-137.
    19. Partha Dasgupta & Geoffrey Heal, 1974. "The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(5), pages 3-28.
    20. David Tilman & Peter B. Reich & Johannes M. H. Knops, 2006. "Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7093), pages 629-632, June.
    21. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1986. "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process in Retrospect," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 3-25, Jan-Mar.
    22. John W. Hartwick, 1991. "Notes on Economic Depreciation of Natural Resource Stocks and National Accounting," Working Paper 818, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    23. Solow, Robert, 1993. "An almost practical step toward sustainability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 162-172, September.
    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. Mircea Sˇveanu, 2014. "Energy and the Economics of Sustainability. The Entropy Paradox," Management of Sustainable Development, Sciendo, vol. 6(1), pages 1-5, August.
    2. Toman, Michael & Pezzey, John C., 2002. "The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles," RFF Working Paper Series dp-02-03, Resources for the Future.
    3. Alessio Emanuele BIONDO, 2010. "A Growth Rate for a Sustainable Economy," Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, Faculty of Financial Management and Accounting Craiova, vol. 5(2(12)/Sum), pages 7-20.
    4. Daniele Schilirò, 2019. "Sustainability, Innovation, and Efficiency: A Key Relationship," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, in: Magdalena Ziolo & Bruno S. Sergi (ed.), Financing Sustainable Development, chapter 0, pages 83-102, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Adrian Boos, 2015. "Genuine Savings as an Indicator for “Weak” Sustainability: Critical Survey and Possible Ways forward in Practical Measuring," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-37, April.
    6. Nick Hanley & Louis Dupuy & Eoin McLaughlin, 2015. "Genuine Savings And Sustainability," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 779-806, September.
    7. Andre, Francisco J. & Cerda, Emilio, 2005. "On natural resource substitution," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 233-246, December.
    8. Asheim, Geir B. & Hartwick, John M. & Mitra, Tapan, 2021. "Investment rules and time invariance under population growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    9. Pezzey, John C.V., 2001. "Optimality, Hartwick’s Rule, and Instruments of Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy," 2001 Conference (45th), January 23-25, 2001, Adelaide, Australia 125833, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    10. Antony, Jürgen & Klarl, Torben, 2019. "Resource depletion in a Ramsey economy with subsistence consumption, exogenous technical change and capital depreciation: A full characterization," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203640, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Doyen, L. & Martinet, V., 2012. "Maximin, viability and sustainability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1414-1430.
    12. Dorothée Charlier & Florian Fizaine, 2020. "Does Becoming Richer Lead to a Reduction in Natural Resource Consumption? An Empirical Refutation of the Kuznets Material Curve," Working Papers 2020.05, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    13. David I. Stern, 2010. "The Role of Energy in Economic Growth," CCEP Working Papers 0310, Centre for Climate & Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    14. Santopietro, George D., 1998. "Alternative methods for estimating resource rent and depletion cost: the case of Argentina's YPF," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 39-48, March.
    15. Antony, Jürgen & Klarl, Torben, 2023. "Subsistence consumption and natural resource depletion: Can resource-rich low-income countries realize sustainable consumption paths?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Antony, Jürgen & Klarl, Torben, 2019. "Non-renewable resources, subsistence consumption, and Hartwick's investment rule," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 124-142.
    17. McGrath, Luke & Hynes, Stephen & McHale, John, 2019. "Augmenting the World Bank's estimates: Ireland's genuine savings through boom and bust," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Jean Bonnet & Eva Coll-Martinez & François Raulin & Patricia Renou-Maissant, 2019. "Typology of sustainable development in Normandy: An appraisal at the intermunicipal level," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 2019-05, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    19. Faucheux, Sylvie & Froger, Geraldine & Noel, Jean-Francois, 1995. "What forms of rationality for sustainable development?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 169-209.
    20. Luke McGrath & Stephen Hynes & John McHale, 2020. "Linking Sustainable Development Assessment in Ireland and the European Union with Economic Theory," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(2), pages 327-355.

    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:dug:actaec:y:2014:i:2:p:139-151. 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: Daniela Robu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fedanro.html .

    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.