 Distribution of phosphorus resources between rich and poor countries: The effect of recyclingHans-Peter Weikard and Demet Seyhan Ecological Economics, 2009, vol. 68, issue 6, 1749-1755 Abstract: Phosphorus (P) is an essential input into agriculture with no substitute. Thus international and intertemporal P allocations greatly impact food security which requires increased food production for a growing world population. As high quality phosphorus mines are being depleted, recycling gains importance and developed countries explore new technologies for P recycling. We analyse the effects of P recycling in developed countries on global extraction of rock phosphates and the imports of developing countries. We build a resource extraction model for a competitive fertilizer market that reflects the fact that most developed countries have P-saturated soils while soils in many developing countries are P-deficient. Our model extends a simple cake eating problem. We consider two types of countries that differ in demand and recycling options. We find that P recycling in developed countries does not only prolong the resource life-time, but it also increases the developing counties' share of the resource. Keywords: Non-renewable; resources; Essential; resources; Phosphate; mining; Recycling; Distribution; of; resources (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:6:p:1749-1755 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier |
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