Economics of Production from Natural Resources

This paper attempts to provide a unified theory of production from natural resources. A single model of an industry is used to describe a dynamic process of recovery from such technologically diverse resources as fish, timber, petroleum, and minerals. Recovery from each of these resources is seen as a special case of a general model, depending upon whether the resource is replenishable, and on whether production exhibits significant externalities. A model of centralized management, with particular reference to “common property” resources, such as fisheries, under stationary conditions, is also discussed and compared with competitive recovery in the stationary state.