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Hotelling and Recycling

Author

Listed:
  • Bocar Samba Ba

    (CREATE - Center for Research on the Economics of the Environment, Agri-food, Transports and Energy)

  • Raphael Soubeyran

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier)

Abstract

We study the exploitation of recyclable exhaustible resources such as metals that are crucial for the energy transition or phosphorus that is crucial for agricultural production. We use a standard Hotelling model of resource exploitation that includes a primary sector and a recycling sector. We study two polar cases: competitive and monopolistic extraction. We show that, when the primary sector is competitive, the Hotelling's rule holds and the price of the recyclable resource increases over time. We then show a new reason why the price of an exhaustible resource may decrease: when the primary sector is monopolistic, the primary producer has incentives to delay its production activities in order to delay recycling. As a consequence, the price path of the recyclable resource may be U-shaped. Numerical simulations reveal that the monopolist has an incentive to delay extraction when the recoverability rate is high (because more recycled goods are produced) or when the recoverability rate is low (when fewer recycled goods are expected to be produced in the future). As a consequence, the date of exhaustion of the virgin resource is further away in time for high and low levels of recoverability than for intermediate levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Bocar Samba Ba & Raphael Soubeyran, 2023. "Hotelling and Recycling," Post-Print hal-04015636, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04015636
    DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2023.101358
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04015636v1
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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Belleflamme & Huan Ha, 2024. "Improving Recycling: How Far Should We Go?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(7), pages 1993-2033, July.
    2. Cotrina-Teatino, Marco A. & Marquina-Araujo, Jairo J., 2024. "Hotelling rule in non-renewable resources: A bibliometric and systematic literature review analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

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