Hartwick's rule

The Hartwick rule is a 1977 published by John M. Hartwick rule sustainable use of resources in an economy that is dependent on exhaustible resources. Is sustainable according to this rule, a resource path if the company the exhaustible resource in terms of the Hotelling rule degrades efficient, fully invested, the scarcity rent therefrom generated in man-made capital and only the remaining net national product consumed. As a consequence saves - according to John Rawls ' theory of justice - each generation so much that their children can consume as much despite the expected shortage of raw materials.

In the strict sense, the Hartwick rule only applies on the Solow (1974 ) introduced assumption of a Cobb -Douglas production function in which the substitution between inputs is unity, elastic and the capital input has a larger coefficient than the energy input. The Hartwick rule as an example of a theory of weak sustainability.

Criticism

The rule can only with difficulty be permanently satisfied, because it is unclear how many resources there are, as their technical handling and recycling facilities will look like in the future, as the population will develop and because the resources are likely to go out sometime. In recent centuries, the rule could be met while tending because of the standard of living grew normally. However, consistently applied, so with this in mind that the next generation of the rule must apply again for the next generation to it, the rule is probably unrealistic and unattainable.