Adaptive Mechanisms, Growth, and the Environment: The Case of Natural Resources
Author(s)
Common, Michael; Pearce, David W.
Abstract
The authors discuss the alleged conflict between economic growth and environmental quality in the context of natural resource depletion. They conclude that a potential conflict necessarily exists and that social science has the task of analyzing the extent to which socio-economic systems contain adaptive mechanisms which will prevent the potential conflict becoming an actual one. Using a simple model they show that the price mechanism cannot be relied upon to break the link between the rate of growth of income and the rate of resource depletion.
