IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/rffdps/10562.html

Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity: The State of the Debate

Author

Listed:
  • Krautkraemer, Jeffrey A.

Abstract

Whether economic growth can be sustained in a finite natural world is one of the earliest and most enduring questions in economic literature. Even with unprecedented growth in human population and resource consumption, humans have been quite adept at finding solutions to the problem of scarce natural resources, particularly in response to signals of increased scarcity. Because environmental resources generally are not generally traded on markets, however, scarcity signals for these resources may be inadequate, and appropriate policy responses are difficult to implement and manage. In the debate over the economic scarcity of natural resources, one significant change in recent years has been a greater focus on the ecosystem services and the resource amenities yielded by natural environments. The general conclusion of this paper is that technological progress has ameliorated the scarcity of natural resource commodities; but resource amenities have become more scarce, and it is unlikely that technology alone can remedy that.

Suggested Citation

  • Krautkraemer, Jeffrey A., 2005. "Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity: The State of the Debate," Discussion Papers 10562, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:rffdps:10562
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10562
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/10562/files/dp050014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.10562?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:ecorec:v:65:y:1989:i:190:p:265-78 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Johnson, D. Gale, 2002. "The declining importance of natural resources: lessons from agricultural land," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 157-171, February.
    3. John E. Tilton, 1989. "The New View of Minerals and Economic Growth," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 65(3), pages 265-278, September.
    4. Hall, Darwin C. & Hall, Jane V., 1984. "Concepts and measures of natural resource scarcity with a summary of recent trends," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 363-379, December.
    5. Cutler J. Cleveland & Robert K. Kaufmann, 1991. "Forecasting Ultimate Oil Recovery and Its Rate of Production: Incorporating Economic Forces into the Models of M. King Hubbert," The Energy Journal, , vol. 12(2), pages 17-46, April.
    6. Farzin, Y Hossein, 1984. "The Effect of the Discount Rate on Depletion of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(5), pages 841-851, October.
    7. Slade, Margaret E., 1982. "Trends in natural-resource commodity prices: An analysis of the time domain," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 122-137, June.
    8. Humphreys, D., 2001. "Sustainable development: can the mining industry afford it?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-7, March.
    9. Smith, James L., 2002. "Oil and the economy: introduction," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 163-168.
    10. Jeffrey A. Krautkraemer, 1998. "Nonrenewable Resource Scarcity," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 2065-2107, December.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Lynch, Michael C., 2002. "Forecasting oil supply: theory and practice," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 373-389.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Campbell, Elliott T. & Tilley, David R., 2014. "Valuing ecosystem services from Maryland forests using environmental accounting," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 141-151.
    2. Pedro Monteiro & Teresa De Noronha & Paulo Neto, 2013. "A Differentiation Framework for Maritime Clusters: Comparisons across Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(9), pages 1-30, September.
    3. John E. Wagner & David H. Newman, 2013. "The Simon-Ehrlich Bet: Teaching Relative Vs. Absolute Scarcity," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 58(1), pages 16-26, May.
    4. Durmaz, Tunç, 2018. "The economics of CCS: Why have CCS technologies not had an international breakthrough?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 328-340.
    5. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2007. "Early Retirement in the Government Sector in Egypt: Preferences, Determinants and Policy Implications," Working Papers 721, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jan 2007.
    6. Robert Wiedmer & Judith M. Whipple & Stanley E. Griffis & Clay M. Voorhees, 2020. "Resource Scarcity Perceptions in Supply Chains: The Effect of Buyer Altruism on the Propensity for Collaboration," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 56(4), pages 45-64, October.
    7. Hu, Xiaowei & Li, Peng, 2022. "Relief and stimulus in a cross-sector multi-product scarce resource supply chain network," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    8. Xiaowei Hu & Peng Li, 2021. "Relief and Stimulus in A Cross-sector Multi-product Scarce Resource Supply Chain Network," Papers 2101.09373, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    9. Combes, Jean-Louis & Delacote, Philippe & Combes Motel, Pascale & Yogo, Thierry Urbain, 2018. "Public spending, credit and natural capital: Does access to capital foster deforestation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 306-316.
    10. Bryan, Brett A. & Ye, Yanqiong & Zhang, Jia'en & Connor, Jeffery D., 2018. "Land-use change impacts on ecosystem services value: Incorporating the scarcity effects of supply and demand dynamics," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(PA), pages 144-157.
    11. Marius Bulearca & Catalin Popescu, 2019. "New Approaches To The Management Of Natural Resources (1): The Exploitation," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 6, pages 34-40, December.
    12. Presno, María José & Landajo, Manuel & Fernández, Paula, 2014. "Non-renewable resource prices: A robust evaluation from the stationarity perspective," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 394-416.
    13. Marius Bulearca & Catalin Popescu, 2020. "New Approaches To The Management Of Natural Resources (2): The Market," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 48-54, February.
    14. Lapko, Yulia & Trucco, Paolo & Nuur, Cali, 2016. "The business perspective on materials criticality: Evidence from manufacturers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 93-107.
    15. Alfred Greiner & Willi Semmler & Tobias Mette, 2012. "An Economic Model of Oil Exploration and Extraction," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 40(4), pages 387-399, December.
    16. Giulio Mela & Maria Leonor Carvalho & Andrea Temporelli & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2021. "The Commodity Life Cycle Costing Indicator. An Economic Measure of Natural Resource Use in the Life Cycle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, April.

    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. Krautkraemer, Jeffrey, 2005. "Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity: The State of the Debate," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-14, Resources for the Future.
    2. Jeffrey A. Krautkraemer, 1998. "Nonrenewable Resource Scarcity," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 2065-2107, December.
    3. Wojciech Potocki, 2009. "Mechanizmy kształtujące cenę ropy naftowej w teorii i rzeczywistości," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 10, pages 1-32.
    4. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2007. "Exhaustible resources and secondary materials: A macroeconomic analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 138-148, June.
    5. Brandt, Adam R., 2010. "Review of mathematical models of future oil supply: Historical overview and synthesizing critique," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 3958-3974.
    6. Johannes Pfeiffer, 2017. "Fossil Resources and Climate Change – The Green Paradox and Resource Market Power Revisited in General Equilibrium," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 77, July.
    7. Potocki, Wojciech, . "Mechanizmy kształtujące cenę ropy naftowej w teorii i rzeczywistości," Gospodarka Narodowa-The Polish Journal of Economics, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie / SGH Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2009(10).
    8. Seyhan, Demet & Weikard, Hans-Peter & van Ierland, Ekko, 2012. "An economic model of long-term phosphorus extraction and recycling," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 103-108.
    9. Amigues, Jean-Pierre & Moreaux, Michel, 2013. "Optimal growth under a climate constraint," TSE Working Papers 13-436, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    10. Reynolds, Douglas B. & Baek, Jungho, 2012. "Much ado about Hotelling: Beware the ides of Hubbert," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 162-170.
    11. Addison, Tony & Ghoshray, Atanu, 2023. "Discerning trends in international metal prices in the presence of nonstationary volatility," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    12. Brock, William A. & Taylor, M. Scott, 2005. "Economic Growth and the Environment: A Review of Theory and Empirics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 28, pages 1749-1821, Elsevier.
    13. Mohn, Klaus, 2009. "Elastic Oil. A primer on the economics of exploration and production," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2009/10, University of Stavanger.
    14. Smith, James L., 2012. "On the portents of peak oil (and other indicators of resource scarcity)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 68-78.
    15. Toman, Michael & Krautkraemer, Jeffrey, 2003. "Fundamental Economics of Depletable Energy Supply," RFF Working Paper Series dp-03-01, Resources for the Future.
    16. Roel van Veldhuizen & Joep Sonnemans, 2018. "Nonrenewable Resources, Strategic Behavior and the Hotelling Rule: An Experiment," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 481-516, June.
    17. Dzhumashev, Ratbek, 2024. "The role of physical constraints on production," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    18. Nyambuu, Unurjargal & Semmler, Willi, 2020. "Climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy – Carbon targets and the carbon budget," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 367-376.
    19. André, Francisco J. & Smulders, Sjak, 2014. "Fueling growth when oil peaks: Directed technological change and the limits to efficiency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 18-39.
    20. Piotr Gradziuk & Krzysztof Jończyk & Barbara Gradziuk & Adrianna Wojciechowska & Anna Trocewicz & Marcin Wysokiński, 2021. "An Economic Assessment of the Impact on Agriculture of the Proposed Changes in EU Biofuel Policy Mechanisms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-21, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:rffdps:10562. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.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.