Environmental Concerns and Resource Scarcity: The Case of Coal
Donald L. Snyder
Soumendra Ghosh
DOI: 10.2190/VGR2-2BVK-NC5F-6YY5
Abstract
Traditional measures of resource scarcity have primarily been concerned with the extraction and use of a single natural resource. The relationship between the concurrent use of environmental and extractible resources has attracted little attention. In this article, a conceptual measure of resource scarcity under conditions of simultaneous joint use is developed. This measure includes previously derived indices as special cases. An empirical measure of scarcity under conditions of joint use is derived for coal and air using a translog reproducible cost function. Results suggest that existing environmental regulations have effectively increased the scarcity rent of coal in-use. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.