Renewable resource and capital with a joy-of-giving resource bequest motive

In this article we ask whether a privately owned natural renewable resource can be conserved and managed efficiently when households have a joy-of-giving resource bequest motive. We model an overlapping generations economy in which firms have access to a CES production technology combining the natural resource, physical capital and labor. Our results shed light on the interplay between the resource bequest motive and the substitutability/complementarity relationship between capital and the natural resource in the determination of the equilibrium propensity to use the resource. The mere existence of the bequest motive does not guarantee that the resource will be conserved in the long run. When the resource is highly substitutable with capital, the equilibrium actually never exhausts the resource stock whatever the intensity of the bequest motive. When the resource is a poor substitute for capital, the equilibrium preserves the resource only if the taste for bequeathing is strong enough. Be the economy in over-accumulation or in under-accumulation of the natural resource, it always increases aggregate consumption to run the stock of capital at a level lower than the efficiency level.     

Entropy and economic processes — physics perspectives

This paper is a contribution to the discussion on the relation between thermodynamics and economic theory. With respect to thermodynamic constraints on the economy, there are two diametrically opposite positions in this discussion. One claims that the constraints are insignificant (‘of no immediate practical importance for modelling’) and in the intermediate run, do not limit economic activity and, therefore, need not be incorporated in the economic theory. The other holds that thermodynamics tells us that there are practical limits to materials recycling, which already puts bounds on the economy and, therefore, must be included in the economic models. Using the thermodynamic concept of entropy, we show here that there are fundamental problems with both positions. Even in the long run, entropy production associated with material dissipation need not be a limiting factor for economic development. Abundant energy resources from solar radiation may be used to recover dissipated elements. With simple, quantitative analysis we show that the rate of entropy production caused by human economic activities is very small compared to the continuous natural entropy production in the atmosphere and on the Earth's surface. Further, the societal entropy production is well within the range of natural variation. It is possible to replace part of the natural entropy production with societal entropy production by making use of solar energy. Society consumes resources otherwise available for coming generations. However, future generations need not have less resources available to them than the present generation. Human industrial activities could be transformed into a sustainable system where the more abundant elements are industrially used and recycled, using solar energy as the driving resource. An economic theory, fit to guide industrial society in that development, must not disregard thermodynamics nor must it overstate the consequences of the laws of thermodynamics.     

循环经济与区域经济可持续发展的实证研究——以浙江富阳造纸业为例

循环经济是一种建立在物质不断循环利用基础上的经济生产方式和社会生活方式,其关键组成部分是再生资源利用。再生资源利用不但解决了区域经济发展所需的原料来源,而且促进了区域经济的可持续发展。文章通过对富阳造纸业循环经济发展的分析,总结出废纸回收利用产业发展的富阳模式,其成功经验对我国其他区域循环经济发展有着示范作用。     

低碳经济与循环经济统筹发展研究——以四川为例

低碳经济发展模式强调经济活动中的碳排放逐步降低,循环经济发展模式强调经济活动中的资源循环利用和高效利用,这两者均可以看作是我国建设资源节约型、环境友好型社会的重要内容。因此,片面地强调某一种模式都是不科学的,文章以四川作为研究对象,首先分析了四川低碳经济与循环经济统筹发展的必要性,指出四川省各自然区域自然环境特点、主要资源环境问题及对发展制约,低碳经济与循环经济统筹发展是经济发展与环境保护协同发展的需要,经济原则是低碳经济与循环经济统筹发展的基本原则。然后对四川低碳经济与循环经济统筹发展的基础进行了阐述,并根据不同主体功能区的定位,提出低碳经济与循环经济的关注重点,结合各功能区实际情况进行了各具特色的循环经济与低碳经济统筹发展路径探索。     

Endogenous growth and property rights over renewable resources

We study how different regimes of access rights to renewable natural resources – namely open access versus full property rights – affect sustainability, growth and welfare in the context of modern endogenous growth theory. Resource exhaustion may occur under both regimes but is more likely to arise under open access. Moreover, under full property rights, positive resource rents increase expenditures on manufacturing goods and temporarily accelerate productivity growth, but also yield a higher resource price at least in the short-to-medium run. We characterize analytically and quantitatively the model׳s dynamics to assess the welfare implications of differences in property rights enforcement.     

中国新型工业化与资源环境管理

新型工业化强调通过现代技术不断深度开发和广度拓展自然资源在工业生产过程中的利用价值,实现资源利用的高效率和可持续利用,使中国工业从资源消耗型转变为资源节约型和技术导向型."环境成本内化"发展模式的构建是新型工业化的内在要求,它具体包括:建立"成本内化"的科技创新体系;大力发展循环经济,制定和完善促进循环经济发展的法律法规体系;探索新的城市发展模式,强化城市区域生态建设和环境治理.     

Intergenerational natural-capital equality in an overlapping-generations model with logistic regeneration

Following Mourmouras [Scandinavian Journal of Economics 93 (1991): 585–591], in a Diamond [American Economic Review 55 (1965): 1126–1150] type overlapping-generations model with renewable natural resources a competitive path of manmade capital accumulation exists which meets the sustainability criterion of intergenerational natural-capital equ(al)ity (= sustainable growth). The alleged compatibility of decentralized optimization with natural-capital sustainability is appealing, but the rel-evance of this compatibility result is questionable: the growth factor of the renewable natural resource is assumed to be independent of the resource stock. Employing instead a nonlinear (logistic) regeneration function, this paper reconsiders Mourmouras' compatibility statement in another natural environment. It is shown that only under a certain complex relationship between the parameters of the utility, production, and natural-growth function does a nontrivial stationary state exist which is saddle-point stable. It exhibits by definition intergenerational natural-capital equality, but the non-linear setting precludes in general, natural-capital equality across generations on the growth path towards the stationary state.     

PROJECT EVALUATION AND RESOURCE SUSTAINABILITY

This paper outlines a procedure for embodying the principle of resource sustainability in evaluating projects that use significant amounts of natural resources. In this analysis, sustainability requires maintaining the productivity of the resource used over time, either by renewing the resource or by investing its depletion in other capital assets. The basis of a project's evaluation is its net present social value (NPSV), including resource depletion as a social cost. The social cost of depletion is the amount that must be saved and reinvested annually to accumulate a fund that will yield a perpetual annual income equal to the net output lost by resource depletion. By treating resource depletion as a social cost in calculating NPSV, projects causing a high rate of resource depletion receive a relatively low valuation compared with projects causing less resource depletion. Resource depletion includes environmental damage caused by constructing and operating a project, as well as the direct consumption of natural resources.
Several problems arise in reinvesting depletion to preserve the value of a resource base. One major problem relates to the substitutability of man-made capital for natural resources. The conclusion of the analysis here is that society must invest a substantial amount of resource depletion in: (i) replenishing renewable resources, (ii) increasing product output per unit of resource used, or (Hi) increasing the end-use efficiency of resource-intensive products.     

论生态旅游发展的持续性与利益化的制衡

可持续旅游的核心包含了努力将经济、社会、文化目标相融合的观念。生态旅游由于在资源的持续利用和促进旅游目的地社会经济发展方面具有双重意义,近10年来在全球许多地方蓬勃发展。但由于缺乏合理规划和有效管理,随着旅游者人数的不断增加,对新的场所和经历的需求也不断增加,在一些旅游目的地,生态旅游开始对当地居民生活及生态环境造成负面影响,对野生生物、自然和人文资源造成危害。生态旅游的负面影响和成本因子不断显现,环境退化、经济的不稳定性和不公平性、社会文化的改变等因素使生态旅游发展陷入困境。为使生态旅游在持续性和利益化之间协调发展,就需要采取一系列措施来保护生态旅游赖以发展的自然环境,确保旅游资源的可持续利用。     

Mineral resources for renewable energy: Optimal timing of energy production

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled, while fossil resources cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce, but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that affect the optimal schedule of resource use: expected productivity growth in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.     

Producing energy in a stochastic environment: Switching from non-renewable to renewable resources

In this paper, we study the determinants of switching from non-renewable natural resource inputs to renewable resource inputs in energy production. We assume that the stocks of both natural resources are stochastic, and that the adoption of renewable resources is costly and irreversible. Our formulation gives raise to an optimal stopping/switching problem that cannot be solved analytically, then we turn to numerical simulations. Our results suggest that the optimal switching time depends not only on the uncertainty parameters, but also on energy demand, costs, and the relative productivity of the resources.     

Renewable energy-the path to sustainability

This orticle seeks to address come lingering debates within sustainability studies by revealing the connections between renewable energy consumption and sustainability.Using data from 30 OECD counties,examines the connections via regression and geospattal analysis.Findings from the quantitative analysis indicate that about 50% of the variation in Sustainability is accounted for by the degree of renewables Consumption. The geospatial analysis visuaUv illustrates the intimate connections between the two variables, Theoretically, renewable energy relates to sustainability in three dimensions. The first dimension is economic. Relying on traditional fassil fuels eventually will bring our economy to a stop. Renewable energies, however; are able to secure our energy supply into an indefinite future. The second dimension links to ethics. To leave an intact planet torture generations is a moral responsibity of our generation, The current energy supply system is built on depletion of natural resources, while the sources of renewable energy are vast and constantly replenished. Tire last dimension is ecologic. How to allocate a proper apportionment of the global biosphere between humankind and the other life on the earth is a critical issue related to sustainability. By using renewable energy, we can greatly reduce our impact on biodiversity and therefore strike a balance between humankind and other life. Overall the research suggests that developing renewables can and in many. cases does sustain a nation＇s economic growth while simultaneously protecting the environment. It is a win-win situation. This finding undoubtedly points out a practical and realistic path for sustainable development.     

Renewable enery-the path to sustainability

This article seeks to address some lingering debates within sustainability studies by revealing the connections between renewable energy,consumption and sustainability.Using data from 30 OECD countries,the article amines the connections via regression and geospatial analysis Findings from the quantitative analysis indicate that about 50% of the variation in sustainability is accounted for by the degree of renewables consumption.The geospatial analysis visually illustrates the intimate connections between the two variables.Theoreticallv,renewable energy,relates to sustainability in three dimensions.The first dimension is economic.Relying on traditional fossil fuels eventually will bring our economy to a stop.Renewable energies,however,are able to secure our energy supply into an indefinite future.The second dimension links to ethics.To leave an intact planet to future generations is a moral responsibility of our generation.The current energy supply system is built on depletion of natural resources,while the sources of renewable energy are vast and constantlv replenished The last dimension is ecologic.How to allocate a porper apportionment of the global hiosphere between humankind and the other life on the earth is a critical issue related to sustainability.By using renewable energv,we can greatly reduce our impact on biodiversity and therefore strike a balance between humankind and other life.Overall the research suggests that developing renewables can and in many cases does sustain a nation's economic growth while simultaneously protecting the environment.It is a win-win situation.This finding undoubtedly points out a practical and realistic path for sudtainable development.     

动脉产业与静脉产业互动合作关系研究

本文在对动脉与静脉产业的功能与作用进行分析的基础上,首先,以不可再生资源为基础,依次增加可再生资源、静脉产业资源的方式分别建立资源平衡模型,分析延长产业生命周期互动关系;建立资源总量模型分析规模互动关系;从定性方面对发展促进互动关系进行了研究.其次,对协同发展关系进行了研究,得出了产业发展规模相适应、产业性质、产业调整、资源共享等协同一致,并对内涵进行了分析;从技术、规模、市场需求、产业关系等方面对相互制约关系进行了研究.最后,得出了合理确定动脉与静脉产业的比例关系、及时调整两者的发展规模与结构是保障循环经济体系正常运行的基础的结论,并给出了应对策略.     

Recycling under a material balance constraint

In this paper we analyze the dynamic implications of recycling for resource use, the level of economic activity and the long-run development of the economy. In contrast to former approaches, we take explicit account of the circulation of matter in the economy. We consider virgin resources and recycled wastes as essential inputs to production. These material inputs either end up as waste after consumption or are bound in the capital stock—depending on the utilization of the produced output. As accumulating wastes can be recycled and again be employed in production, the waste stock serves as a source of valuable inputs in our model. We focus on the implications of recycling-related market failures and the integration of material balances on the dynamics of the economy. It is shown that a market for waste and subsidies to resource extractors and recycling firms can restore optimality in the decentralized economy.     

发展畜牧业循环经济需要关注的问题

发展畜牧业循环经济是我国农业可持续发展的核心，本文围绕我国发展畜牧业循环经济的潜力和优势、资源缺口和解决途径、清洁生产和再生资源利用、保障措施等方面论述了我国发展畜牧业循环经济的利弊，并给出一些相应的应对措施及方案。     

Renewable Resources,Pollution and Trade

Detrimental spillovers from industrial activity onto resource‐based productive sectors are very common, yet their effects remain understudied. While international trade often creates conditions for the over‐exploitation of open‐access renewable resources, it also provides opportunities for separating different productive sectors spatially. The existing literature suggests that a diversified exporter of the renewable resource good tends to lose from trade in both welfare and conservation terms as a result of over‐depletion, while the exporter of the non‐resource good gains. However, the resource stock externality of harvesting and the inter‐industry pollution externality often coexist in reality. In a small open economy framework, this paper shows that acknowledging their interaction changes the nature of the autarkic equilibrium and enriches the set of resource conservation and welfare outcomes from trade. Depending on the relative damage inflicted by the two industries on the environment, which in turn are functions of the pollution intensity and bioeconomic parameters, it is possible that the inter‐sectoral pollution externality persists and specialization in manufacturing is not optimal from a welfare perspective.     

Why do many resource-rich countries have negative genuine saving?: Anticipation of better times or rapacious rent seeking

We investigate the Hartwick rule for saving of a nation necessary to sustain a constant level of private consumption for a small open economy with an exhaustible stock of natural resources. The amount by which a country saves and invests less than the marginal resource rents equals the expected capital gains on reserves of natural resources plus the expected increase in interest income on net foreign assets plus the expected fall in the cost of resource extraction due to expected improvements in extraction technology. Effectively, depletion is then postponed until better times. This suggests that it is not necessarily sub-optimal for resource-rich countries to have negative genuine saving. However, in countries with different groups with imperfectly defined property rights on natural resources, political distortions induce faster resource depletion than suggested by the Hotelling rule. Fractionalised societies with imperfect property rights build up more foreign assets than their marginal resource rents, but in the long run accumulate less foreign assets than homogenous societies. Hence, such societies end up with lower sustainable consumption and are worse off, especially if seepage is strong, the number of rival groups is large and the country does not enjoy much monopoly power on the resource market. Genuine saving is zero in such societies. However, World Bank genuine saving figures based on market rather than accounting prices will be negative, albeit less so in more fractionalised societies with less secure property rights.     

“互联网+再生资源回收”模式推进机制的三方演化博弈研究

随着垃圾分类政策逐步在全国范围内推行,一些企业将互联网技术与垃圾分类回收相结合,提出了“互联网+再生资源回收”的新模式,但目前该模式仍处于探索阶段,想要在全国范围内推广还有诸多问题需要解决。论文基于演化博弈论理论,构建“互联网+再生资源回收”模式下城市生活垃圾分类回收的演化博弈模型,对博弈三方行为决策进行分析以及仿真验证,研究结果表明:政府的监督成本、政府提供给垃圾分类企业和居民的财政补贴、政府对垃圾分类企业的行政处罚力度以及居民参与垃圾分类的直接收益等因素是制约三方演化博弈能否达到理想均衡状态的关键,进一步分析模型成因,并针对结果提出几点建议。     

农业循环经济发展对策研究——以河南省固始县为例

固始县作为河南省农业经济较为发达、工业经济开始起步的农业大县,依托农产品资源形成了以农产品加工为主导的产业结构,开展涉农循环经济,在河南具有较好的示范意义。在分析固始县农业循环经济发展现状的基础上,遵循循环经济和生态农业理念,以减少资源消耗、降低废物排放、提高资源利用效率为目标,提出了构建固始县农业循环经济体系的理念和模式,从发展构建农业循环经济链条、健全农业循环经济服务体系等几个方面提出了具体的措施。