An Introduction to the Economics of Optimal Growth Pathways and the Health of Natural and Ecological Resources

How should humanity manage the natural and ecological resources on the planet over time? Can the economy be managed in a socially welfare optimizing way so that it continues to grow at a socially optimal rate? This book takes on these core questions from both the national economy’s perspective and the perspective of individual enterprises of natural resources. For the questions of natural resource uses and conservations, this book elucidates six major economic theories: Ricardo’s rent on cropland, von Thunen’s spatial land use, Faustmann’s forest rotation, Hotelling’s fossil fuel economics, a bioeconomic fish harvest model under open access, and Fisher’s financial assets. For the questions of macroeconomic growth, the following five major economic theories are critically reviewed: Fisher’s theory on capital and interest rate, Ramsey’s optimal national savings rate, Solow’s modern economic growth, Koopmans’s concept of optimal economic growth path, Nordhaus’s carbon price. Each chapter presents each of these theories as well as a major critique against the main theory presented in the chapter. Many of these critiques can be referred to as a sub-optimal growth critique or a post-growth critique.