TY - JOUR
T1 - Poverty, social preference for employment, and natural resource depletion
AU - Farzin, Y. H.
AU - Akao, K. I.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013, Springer Japan.
PY - 2015/1
Y1 - 2015/1
N2 - We show that in poor resource-based communities, the socio-psychological preference for employment, which arises from a strong desire to follow the communal norm of sharing in harvesting efforts, can lead to the optimality of full-employment harvesting until resource extinction. We show that such communities may be able to sustain both their natural resources and full employment by using outside-the-community employment opportunities or by economic diversification. However, to be effective, such policies must ensure that the outside wage rate and the initial capital stock are above certain minimum levels which depend on the existing size of the resource stock, the characteristics of the community’s harvesting technology, and the biological growth characteristics of the resource in question, and which will be higher the longer the remedial policies are delayed.
AB - We show that in poor resource-based communities, the socio-psychological preference for employment, which arises from a strong desire to follow the communal norm of sharing in harvesting efforts, can lead to the optimality of full-employment harvesting until resource extinction. We show that such communities may be able to sustain both their natural resources and full employment by using outside-the-community employment opportunities or by economic diversification. However, to be effective, such policies must ensure that the outside wage rate and the initial capital stock are above certain minimum levels which depend on the existing size of the resource stock, the characteristics of the community’s harvesting technology, and the biological growth characteristics of the resource in question, and which will be higher the longer the remedial policies are delayed.
KW - Communal norm
KW - Full employment
KW - Resource extinction
KW - Social preference for work
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84919866199&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1007/s10018-013-0074-6
DO - 10.1007/s10018-013-0074-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84919866199
VL - 17
JO - Environmental Economics and Policy Studies
JF - Environmental Economics and Policy Studies
SN - 1432-847X
IS - 1
ER -