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PREFACE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2011

P. S. Dasgupta
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
G. M. Heal
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
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Summary

A book on the economics of exhaustible resources requires no justification. A long book does. We had originally planned to write a monograph on the subject, more in keeping with the design of the Handbook Series, of which this volume is a member. Had we pursued this approach we would have been forced to assume a knowledge of resource allocation theory, and the book would have applied this directly to the subject matter at hand. But the subject has recently attracted the attention of mathematicians, physicists, engineers, biologists and systems analysts as well, and we wanted to write for them too.

There was in fact another reason. Even the best graduate texts on resource allocation theory are often dry, and it is not uncommon for economics students to fail to see what questions such economic theorizing is designed to answer and why they might be worth asking. It occurred to us that exhaustible natural resources provide one with particularly good examples for illustrating resource allocation theory. There is therefore a good deal of interchange between resource allocation theory and its application to exhaustible resources in the chapters that follow. We have often raised a question that appears naturally to arise when one thinks of such resources, developed the relevant analysis in a more general context, and then gone back to address ourselves to the question we had originally asked. This second reason explains why we have attempted to write a text on resource allocation theory at the same time.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1980

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  • PREFACE
  • P. S. Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, G. M. Heal, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628375.001
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  • PREFACE
  • P. S. Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, G. M. Heal, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628375.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • PREFACE
  • P. S. Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, G. M. Heal, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628375.001
Available formats
×