Modeling and Measuring Natural Resource Substitution

By Ernst R. Berndt and Barry C. Field

A strategy of natural resource substitution is critical if the nation is to adapt successfully to the emerging reality of resource shortages. The essays collected for the first time in this book provide evidence that economists are rising to the challenge, both in terms of anticipating the issues and developing appropriate methodologies for coping with them. The authors' range of considerations here includes duality principles, flexible function forms, the effects of technical innovation, possible energy-capital and energy-labor trade-offs, static and dynamic modeling, and short-term and longterm analytical frameworks. A number of chapters deal with energy resources, while others study substitutions for agricultural resources, nonfuel minerals, and metals. An introductory chapter by the editors, outlines the analytical and empirical state of affairs in this subject area and places the eleven chapters which follow within this context. These are grouped into three major topics: Results from Recent Research on Resource Substitution and Technological Progress; Problems Arising from Recent Research; and Dynamic Models. Contributors are: Dale W. Jorgenson, Barbara M. Fraumeni, John R. Moroney, John M. Trapani, James M. Griffin, Heejoon Kang, Gardner M. Brown, David C. Stapleton, Richard G. Anderson, Raymond J. Kopp, V. Kerry Smith, J. R. Norsworthy, Michael J. Harper, Randall S. Brown, Laurits R. Christensen, M. Denny, M. Fuss, L. Waverman, Catherine J. Morrison, and G. Cambell Watkins. Ernst R. Berndt is Professor of Applied Economics at the Sloan School, MIT. Barry C. Field is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at The University of Massachusetts.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262021749
• ISBN13: 9780262021746
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
• Length: 326 Pages