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『天然資源不足と経済成長再考:経済的および生物物理学的展望』


Abstract
 The neoclassical model of production assumes that capital and labor are primary inputs to production. Consistent with this assumption, the neoclassical model of natural resource scarcity assumes that real resource prices or capital-labor extraction costs are the appropriate empirical indicators of scarcity. In their seminal work, Barnett and Morse found that capital-labor costs per unit of extractive output declined throughout most of this century, a trend they attributed to “self-generating” technological change. A biophysical model of the economic process assumes that capital and labor are intermediate inputs produced ultimately from the only primary factor of production: low entropy energy and matter. A biophysical model of scarcity posits that direct and indirect energy costs of resource extraction increase with depletion because lower quality deposits require more energy to locate, upgrade, and otherwise transform into useful raw materials. I repeated Barnett and Morse's analysis from a biophysical perspective using energy costs to measure changes in the quality of extractive output in U.S. agriculture, forestry, fishing, and mining industries. In most cases, energy costs per unit of output increases with depletion. Results show that labor and capital costs declined because large quantities of surplus fossil fuel substituted for and increased the productivity of labor and capital. Substantial increases in energy costs were found in agriculture, fisheries and the mining of metals and fossil fuels. Energy costs per unit output in forest products declined. I discuss possible trends for future costs in light of the result that the energy cost of fossil fuels is also rising.』

Introduction
The neoclassical model of natural resource scarcity
A Biophysical critique of the neoclassical model
 Primary factors versus intermediate inputs
 The importance of energy surplus
Resource scarcity from a biophysical perspective
 Empirical measures of scarcity from a biophysical perspective
 Measuring output and energy costs
The energy cost of extractive output
 Mining
 Agriculture
 Forestry
 Fisheries
Discussion of results
 Mining
 Agriculture
 Forest products
 Fisheries
Comparison with economic measures of scarcity
Conclusions
References


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