Authors libby rittenberg 712

been defined The public sector’s role in the allocation of common property resources is investigated in the chapter on the environment We can distinguish two categories of natural resources, those that are renewable and those that are not A renewable natural resource is one whose services can be used in one period without necessarily reducing the stock of the resource that will be available in subsequent periods The fact that they can be used in such a manner does not mean that they will be; renewable natural resources can be depleted Wilderness areas, land, and water are renewable natural resources The consumption of the services of an exhaustible natural resource, on the other hand, necessarily reduces the stock of the resource Oil and coal are exhaustible natural resources Exhaustible Natural Resources Owners of exhaustible natural resources can be expected to take the interests of future as well as current consumers into account in their extraction decisions The greater the expected future demand for an exhaustible natural resource, the greater will be the quantity preserved for future use Expectations and Resource Extraction Suppose you are the exclusive owner of a deposit of oil in Wyoming You know that any oil you pump from this deposit and sell cannot be replaced You are aware that this is true of all the world’s oil; the consumption of oil inevitably reduces the stock of this resource Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 712