Investment and resource policy under a modified Hotelling rule

Bazhanov, Andrei (2011): Investment and resource policy under a modified Hotelling rule.

Abstract

An extensive literature shows the importance of investment policy for sustainability of resource-based economies by examining the role of investment in current utility change (CUC) for a competitive optimizing economy. This paper extends some of these results by analysing the dependence of CUC on genuine investment, expressed in marginal resource productivity, under dynamic inefficiency. This inefficiency arises when a social planner, due to imperfection in knowledge or in institutions, does not take into account deviations of real economy from a theoretical model. These deviations or distortions, connected with the resource extraction, can influence utility, production, the balance equation, and the dynamics of the reserve, modifying the standard Hotelling rule. The analysis of this natural discrepancy between theory and real life implies that: first, institutional and resource policies in inefficient economies may be more important for CUC than investment policy; and secondly, under uncertainties in production possibilities and in damages from economic activities, sustainability requires a more cautious resource policy than is advised by a theory.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: nonrenewable resource; dynamic inefficiency; genuine investment; resource policy; sustainable development
• Subjects: Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation > Q32 - Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation > Q38 - Government Policy; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O47 - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth ; Aggregate Productivity ; Cross-Country Output Convergence; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products

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