Open AccessDOES A RENEWABLE NATURAL RESOURCE USUALLY HAVE MANY NEAR‐OPTIMAL ALLOCATION PATHS?
Author(s) -
ROWSE JOHN
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
natural resource modeling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.28
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1939-7445
pISSN - 0890-8575
DOI - 10.1111/j.1939-7445.2000.tb00045.x
Subject(s) - optimal allocation , economics , renewable resource , resource allocation , microeconomics , mathematical optimization , natural resource , path (computing) , mathematical economics , computer science , renewable energy , mathematics , ecology , biology , market economy , programming language
. Utilizing a deterministic single‐species computational renewable natural resource model, it is found that there exist many dynamic allocation paths near‐optimal to the efficient path, where the latter maximizes conventionally‐defined social welfare. Some alternative paths involve substantial trading of surplus over time among market participants and hold different implications for income distribution. Universality of findings cannot be asserted, but the results are intuitively plausible and suggest that multiple near‐optimal allocation paths may exist in related models as well. Existence of many near‐optimal paths holds significant implications for theory and policy.