Population Growth and Natural-Resource Scarcity: Long-Run Development under Seemingly Unfavorable Conditions

2013 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 722-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Bretschger
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity ◽  
Long Run

McCulloch, Scrope, and Hodgskin: Nineteenth-Century Versions of Julian Simon

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
William S. Kern
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity ◽  
Growing Population

In The Ultimate Resource (1981, 1996), and in many other publications over the last several decades, Julian Simon put forth controversial views regarding the connection between natural resource scarcity, population growth, and economic progress. Simon argued, in contrast to those espousing the limits to growth, that natural resources were not getting scarcer, but more abundant, and that a large and growing population was an asset rather than a liability in the pursuit of economic growth.

Plastic Flowers: Overlooking Resource Scarcity in Postwar America

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 111-133
Author(s):  
Anirban Gupta-Nigam
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity ◽  
Material Scarcity

This essay historicizes cultural and psychic economies in the postwar United States under the sign of material scarcity. It situates the proliferation of plastic flowers in domestic space within a context of bureaucratic anxieties surrounding natural resource scarcity, and trends toward ‘outdoor living’ that were an offshoot of the ideology of economic growth. Interrogating repeated, if relatively unexamined, invocations of ‘anxious’ suburban subjects in descriptions of postwar society, the essay suggests that plastic flowers shored up a sense of stability and permanence at a time when nuclear annihilation, Cold War paranoia, and population growth combined to render life uncertain and potentially unsustainable. The essay concludes by reflecting on how legacies of that epoch – and the fiction of permanence offered by plastic flowers – endure in contemporary fantasies of limitless progress.

Productive and exchange scarcity: an empirical analysis of the U.S. forest products industry

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 1537-1549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cutler J. Cleveland ◽  
David I. Stern
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Unit Cost ◽  
Forest Products ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity ◽  
Unit Energy ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Post War ◽  
The U.S

This paper has two aims: clarification of several aspects of the debate on the appropriateness of various indicators of natural resource scarcity and the empirical analysis of the trends in the scarcity of forest products in the U.S. Two distinct types of indicators are developed in the natural resource scarcity literature, which we term exchange scarcity and productive scarcity. In the neoclassical paradigm, the former is measured by price and rental rates, and the latter by unit cost. In the biophysical literature, productive scarcity is measured by quality-weighted measures of unit energy cost. We test econometrically for trends in lumber prices in the long-run period 1800–1990, for trends in stumpage prices between 1910 and 1989, and for trends in productive scarcity indicators in the shorter 1947–1990 period. The empirical evidence indicates that the growth in the price of forest products as compared with other manufactured goods, and in the rental rate of timberland, levelled off during the post-war period in the U.S. Nevertheless, these commodities are today much more scarce than in the historic past. From the end of the 1950s, absolute and relative productive scarcity declined as measured by all indicators. The levelling off of the price of forest products after 150 years of increase is consistent with economic theory that predicts that prices reach a plateau when extraction from old-growth forests is replaced by forest plantations and replanting in general.

scholarly journals Supply chain strategies in an era of natural resource scarcity

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 784-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitra Kalaitzi ◽  
Aristides Matopoulos ◽  
Michael Bourlakis ◽  
Wendy Tate
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Dependence ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Resource Dependence Theory ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of natural resource scarcity (NRS) for companies’ supply chain strategies. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the resource dependence theory (RDT), a conceptual model is developed and validated through the means of exploratory research. The empirical work includes the assessment of qualitative data collected via 22 interviews representing six large multinational companies from the manufacturing sector. Findings When the resources are scarce and vitally important, companies use buffering strategies. Buffering and bridging strategies are preferred when there are a few alternative suppliers for the specific resource and when there is limited access to scarce natural resources. Research limitations/implications The research focuses on large multinational manufacturing companies so results may not be generalised to other sectors and to small- and medium-sized firms. Future research needs to examine the implications of NRS for organisational performance. Practical implications This research provides direction to manufacturing companies for adopting the best supply chain strategy to cope with NRS. Originality/value This paper adds to the body of knowledge by providing new data and empirical insights into the issue of NRS in supply chains. The RDT has not been previously employed in this context. Past studies are mainly conceptual and, thus, the value of this paper comes from using a qualitative approach on gaining in-depth insights into supply chain-related NRS strategies and its antecedents.

Measuring natural resource scarcity

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 517-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Landis Mackellar ◽  
Daniel R. Vining
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Natural Resource Scarcity
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