Conflicts between optimality and sustainability are typical in the literature on sustainable development. Using the “capital-resource” growth model, Pezzey and Withagen (1998, Scandinavian Journal of Economics <Emphasis Type="Bold">100 (2), 513–527) have proved that if natural resources are exhaustible, the...</emphasis>

In this paper, we study the effects of amenities and uncertainty on the optimal exploitation of a renewable resource. First, if society displays a protection motive (in the presence of amenities), its optimal harvesting strategy will be more conservative. Second, we show that ecological...