Optimal Consumption of a Nonrenewable Resource with Stochastic Discoveries and a Random Environment

Sudhakar D. Deshmukh and Stanley R. Pliska

The Review of Economic Studies, 1983, vol. 50, issue 3, 543-554

Abstract: We present a general model for the optimal consumption of a nonrenewable resource under two kinds of uncertainties. One source of uncertainty is in the resource discovery process and the other is in the economic environment that affects resource supply and demand conditions, such as exhaustion and development of a substitute. The problem is formulated as one of optimally controlling a storage process with Markov additive discoveries. The optimal value of the resource stock is characterized as the solution of a functional equation and the existence of an optimal consumption policy is established. It is shown that, in a given environment, the optimal consumption rate is increasing and the resource price is decreasing in the level of proven reserves. A counterexample is provided to show that better environments may in fact mean higher prices and lower consumption rates. Finally, a variety of examples is given to illustrate the scope and applicability of the general model.

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/2297680 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:restud:v:50:y:1983:i:3:p:543-554.

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().