Il existe une littérature assez abondante sur l'ordre dans lequel une société devrait utiliser ses ressources au cours du temps. Ce que nous voudrions explorer c'est l'incidence d'un progrès technique spécifique, permettant d'économiser les quantités de ressources requises par unité de...

Nous analysons l’impact de deux politiques américaines sur la production et les échanges d’éthanol (biocarburants de première génération) et d’éthanol ligno-cellulosique (biocarburant de seconde génération) aux Etats-Unis et au Brésil ainsi que sur les émissions directes et...

In the midwestern United States, ethanol produced from corn is mixed with gasoline to meet clean air standards. Allocating land to produce clean fuel means taking away land from farming. We examine a model in which a scarce fossil fuel (e.g., oil) causes pollution but may be substituted by a...

Environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol aim to stabilize the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is mainly caused by the burning of nonrenewable resources such as coal. We characterize the solution to the textbook Hotelling model when there is a ceiling on the stock of...

We determine the optimal exploitation time-paths of two energy resources, one being depletable and polluting, namely a fossil fuel, the other being renewable and clean. These optimal paths are considered along with the two following features. First, the cumulative atmospheric pollution stock is...

Saltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers is one of the main causes of groundwater quality degradation. These intrusions are often due to excessive withdrawals in sensitive parts of coastal aquifers. The scope of this paper is to identify specific problems set by optimal management of such a...

We show that the social desirability of a resource substitute systematically depends on the pattern of resources—either renewable (RR) or non-renewable (NRR)—involved in the resource substitute development program. Developing a RR in an NRR-based economy is particularly rewarding...

On se propose de montrer, dans cet article, que la non-prise en compte des coûts de défrichement ne permet pas de construire une dynamique de l’extension des terres cultivées lorsque la pression de la demande des produits de l’agriculture voudrait qu’il faille consacrer aux activités...