ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is the historical development of economic theories of natural-resource scarcity, from Adam Smith and the classical economics through to the landmark 1963 study by Barnett and Morse, and the contemporary conventional view. These theories have traditionally been classified as either “pessimistic Malthusian” models that suggest a long-term absolute natural-resource scarcity constraint or “optimistic Ricardian” models that do not assume any absolute limits but only admit that resources decline in quality and are therefore relatively scarce. The major themes of this chapter are, first, to examine how well these Ricardian and Malthusian labels fit the classical and neo-classical theories of natural-resource scarcity, tod secondly, to demonstrate how adoption of the Ricardian perspective on resource availability allowed more modern theories to become increasingly sanguine about the ability of market forces and technological change to overcome any “relativ” scarcity.
