The paper tests Hotelling's prediction that scarcity rent for a nonrenewable resource will rise at the rate of discount in a market equilibrium. We perform the test using data for old-growth timber, a resource that is effectively nonrenewable. In contrast to previous studies, for this resource a...

We review the empirical literature that extends and tests the Hotelling model of the optimal depletion of an exhaustible resource. The theory is briefly described to set the stage for the review of empirical tests and applications. Those tests can be roughly divided into two broad categories —...