Scarcity And Growth Revisited

by Simpson, Ralph David; Toman, Michael A.; Ayres, Robert U.

• ISBN13: 9781933115108
• ISBN10: 1933115106
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In this volume, a group of distinguished international scholars provides a fresh investigation of the most fundamental issues involved in our dependence on natural resources. In Scarcity and Growth (RFF, 1963) and Scarcity and Growth Reconsidered (RFF, 1979), researchers considered the long-term implications of resource scarcity for economic growth and human well-being. Scarcity and Growth Revisited examines these implications with 25 years of new learning and experience. It finds that concerns about resource scarcity have changed in essential ways. In contrast with the earlier preoccupation with the adequacy of fuel, mineral, and agricultural resources and the efficiency by which they are allocated, the greatest concern today is about the Earth's limited capacity to handle the environmental consequences of resource extraction and use. Opinion among scholars is divided on the ability of technological innovation to ameliorate this 'œnew scarcity.' However, even the book's more optimistic authors agree that the problems will not be successfully overcome without significant advances in the legal, financial, and other social institutions that protect the environment and support technical innovation. Scarcity and Growth Revisited incorporates expert perspectives from the physical and life sciences, as well as economics. It includes issues confronting the developing world as well as industrialized societies. The book begins with a review of the debate about scarcity and economic growth and a review of current assessments of natural resource availability and consumption. The twelve chapters that follow provide an accessible, lively, and authoritative update to an enduring-but changing-debate.

Table of Contents

About the Contributors	vii
1. Introduction: The "New Scarcity"	1	(32)
R. David Simpson, Michael A. Toman, and Robert U. Ayres
2. Mineral Resources and Consumption in the Twenty-First Century	33	(21)
W. David Menzie, Donald A. Singer, and John H. DeYoung, Jr.
3. Economics of Scarcity: The State of the Debate	54	(24)
Jeffrey A. Krautkraemer
4. Ecosystem Goods and Services and Their Limits: The Roles of Biological Diversity and Management Practices	78	(20)
David Tilman and Stephen Polasky
5. Emerging Scarcities: Bioenergy-Food Competition in a Carbon Constrained World	98	(23)
Christian Azar
6. Sustainability and Its Economic Interpretations	121	(21)
John C.V. Pezzey and Michael A. Toman
7. Resources, Scarcity Technology, and Growth	142	(13)
Robert U. Ayres
8. Endogenous Technological Change, Natural Resources, and Growth	155	(22)
Siak Smulders
9. Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship between Economic Growth, Environmental Quality, and Resource Scarcity	177	(21)
Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh
10. Environmental Policy as a Tool for Sustainability	198	(27)
David Pearce
11. Public Policy: Inducing Investment in Innovation	225	(25)
Molly K. Macauley
12. The Marvels and Perils of Modernity: A Comment	250	(11)
Sylvie Faucheux
13. Intragenerational versus Intergenerational Equity: Views from the South	261	(6)
Ramón López
14. Sustainable Economic Development in the World of Today's Poor	267	(16)
Partha Dasgupta
Index	283