Increasing Extraction Costs and Resource Prices: Some Further Results

Abstract

There has been considerable interest concerning the form of the efficiency price path when extraction costs increase over time. This paper presents a reasonable condition on the distribution of resources among cost grades which implies that the efficiency path is concave, with a relatively high initial price but a declining growth of price, and that the scarcity rent path decreases monotonically. The average scarcity rent path decreases monotonically. The average scarcity rent is also explicitly determined. Finally, a measure of resource scarcity is obtained on the basis of the current efficient competitive price of the resource.