Resources and Economic Growth

Abstract

Editor’s Introduction Originally published in Volume 22, Number 2, Fall 1978, pages 5-11. Robert Solow (born 1924) is one of the most honored economists of all time. In 1961 he received the John Bates Clark medal given by the American Economic Association for significant contributions to the field by an American economist under the age of forty. Several Clark medal recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, including Professor Solow in 1987 for his work in economic growth. His work was again honored in 2014 when he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award presented by the United States. The Solow Growth Model, originally developed in the 1950s, is one of the most widely applied theories in modern economics. In this paper, Professor Solow examines how future economic growth and development is constrained if the natural resource base narrows over time. Professor Solow then applies a variant of his eponymous growth model to analyze the relationship between the ratio of nonrenewable resource inputs to GNP in the United States over the middle half of the twentieth century.