Routledge Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition
resource economics (Q2, Q3)
The economic analysis of environmental issues, especially exhaustible resources, energy and pollution. As early as 1866 JEVONS, in writing of an impending coal shortage, applied economic reasoning to the study of resources. However, it was particularly PIGOU’S discussion of the costs of pollution in his pioneering work on WELFARE ECONOMICS and HOTELLING’S seminal article on the principles concerning exhaustible resources that provided the analytical stimulus which set this subject going. Today, this branch of economics relies on the concept of externalities and COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS and provides recommendations for many forms of economic regulation.
References
Conrad, J.M.
(1999) Resource economics, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Hotelling, H. (1931) ‘The economics of exhaustible resources’, Journal of Political Economy 39 (April):137–75.
Norton, G.A. (1984) Resource Economics, London: Edward Arnold.
Perman, R. et al. (1999) Natural resource and environmental economics, 2nd edn, New York and Harlow: Pearson Education.
Peterson, F.M. and Fisher, A.C. (1977) ‘The exploitation of extractive resources: a survey’, Economic Journal 87: 681–721.
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