The Economics of Resource Management

Introduction The objective of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the economics of resource management and to discuss policy implications. The paper is structured as follows. After a definition of the concepts of "resources" and "sustainability" in Section 2, economic theory is reviewed with regard to the capacity of markets to generate optimal time paths for the exploitation of nonrenewable resources (Section 3). Section 4 presents an interpretation of sustainability that can be applied to non-renewable resources. Section 5 develops recommendations for resource management policies and suggestions for further research.