Conclusion
With few exceptions, the classical economists did not consider resource and environmental constraints as posing severe problems, although they considered that an economy would arrive at a stationary state sooner or later.
They considered that limitation of economic growth was basically attributed to exponential population growth and diminishing returns in agriculture. Their idea of reproducibility of an economy exhibits some similarity to that of sustainability in modern terms. Actually, the idea is rehabilitated and applied to resource and environmental problems by modern classical economists.Although Hotelling anticipated theoretically an increase in scarcity of non-renewable resources, resource prices decreased for rather a long time after the Industrial Revolution. This might have made economists optimistic as regards constraints due to natural resources. Actually, economic growth and development were their main concern after World War II. Experiencing the two oil crises in the 1970s and heavy pollution in the1960s-1970s, however, economists noticed that resource and environmental constraint became much tighter than they had anticipated. Around these periods, economics on resources and the environment came to be established as a branch of economics.
Resources and environmental economics is not merely an application of theoretical economics. Researchers engaged in resources and environmental studies are required to respond to social problems that follow from tighter constraints of natural and environmental resources.
Diversity of economics is indispensable for solving diverse environmental problems. Whichever analytical method may be adopted, a new idea on the value and scarcity of environmental resources must be developed. Such an endeavour to explore the scarcity of environmental resources can be found in Simpson et al. (2005).
Eiji Hθsθda