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Resource Criticality in Modern Economies: Agent-Based Model Demonstrates Vulnerabilities from Technological Interdependence

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Resource Criticality in Modern Economies: Agent-Based Model Demonstrates Vulnerabilities from Technological Interdependence Biophys Econ Resour Qual (2017) 2:9 DOI 10.1007/s41247-017-0026-z ORIGINAL PAPER Resource Criticality in Modern Economies: Agent-Based Model Demonstrates Vulnerabilities from Technological Interdependence John Sherwood1 · Anthony Ditta2 · Becky Haney3 · Loren Haarsma4 · Michael Carbajales-Dale1 Received: 7 February 2017 / Accepted: 7 June 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract Industrialized society will transition away from the interdependence that arises from specialization and dependence on non-renewable resources (fossil fuels, in trade also leads to a less resilient economy. Unexpected, particular) sometime in the foreseeable future. How dis- large economic collapse can arise from a shock to even a ruptive this transition will be to the economy and societal single resource, due to each resource’s interdependent role well-being is unknown, particularly if there are any sud- in the economy. den resource supply constraints. However, the effects of resource supply constraints on an economy, or models of Keywords Agent-based model · Resource criticality · the interdependent relationship between the economy and Technological evolution · Evolutionary complexity · natural capital overall have not been thoroughly developed. Biophysical economics One problem is that traditional models of the economy assume linear growth, while highly interdependent industri- alized economies may behave more like a complex adaptive Introduction and Background system with non-linear, path-dependent, and unexpected growth trajectories. Agent-based models have been shown Resource Depletion and Criticality Concerns to successfully model important aspects of a complex adaptive economy. This paper uses an agent-based model Despite a strong historical record of societies facing to demonstrate potential economic impacts for industri- resource supply constraints, relatively little analysis of the alized economies in the face of a sudden resource supply relationship between exhaustible or constrained resources constraint. Economic “agents” mine resources and invent and the economy appears in the mainstream economics technology. Through trade and specialization, the economy literature. Notable exceptions include Hotelling (1931), evolves from a collection of self-sustaining, resource-poor Hartwick (1977), (Hartwick 1978), and Nordhaus (1979). agents to a society with a high degree of interdependence However, their models do not place natural resources as and wealth. Economic growth, however, comes with a cost; the driver of economic activity. Instead, pricing systems and well-functioning markets insulate the economy from resource constraints. * John Sherwood Conversely, an economy’s dependence on natural [email protected] resources is the center piece of an interdisciplinary, bio- 1 Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth physical approach to economics. This approach goes Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA beyond environmental economics, which simply examines 2 University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, the markets and market failures related to natural resources. IL, USA Instead, the biophysical approach starts with ecology and 3 Department of Economics, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, understands the economy as “a wholly owned subsidiary MI, USA of the ecosystem,” as economist Herman Daly has been 4 Department of Physics, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, often quoted as saying (Daly 2005). Seeing the economy USA as a system wholly dependent on and ultimately tied to the Vol.:(0123456789)1 3 9 Page 2 of 22 Biophys Econ Resour Qual (2017) 2:9 Fig. 1 Cuba historical GDP per 7000 1400 capita and energy imports per D] capita. Data from The World US 6000 1200 Bank (2017) 2010 5000 1000 4000 800 ports im [constant 3000 600 ergy En equivalent per capita] 2000 400 l GDP per capita 1000 200 [kg oi Energy imports per capita GDP per capita 0 0 1970 1975 1980 1985 199019952000200520102015 Year health of a larger natural system brings questions related to constrained supply may prompt drastic shifts throughout an sustainability to the fore rather than as an afterthought, and economy. Additionally, the chances of encountering a sup- particularly after a crisis. ply constraint can increase as more people desire and con- Near-complete socioeconomic collapse appears to have sume more resources, particularly if resource acquisition occurred several times in history due to natural resource technology fails to keep pace with demand. Vaclav Smil (mis)management. Examples include the inhabitants of has stated that, as the world population continues to grow, Easter Island, and the Minoan, Mayan, and Anasazi socie- the absolute rate of resource consumption will increase— ties, although there is not full agreement on the exact causes even while accounting for diminishing per capita resource of collapse (Tainter 1990; Tainter 2006). Conversely, in consumption in OECD countries (Smil 2013).1 more recent and recorded history, predictions of imminent Furthermore, globalization continues to forge eco- collapse due to natural resource supply constraints have nomic connections across continents—most economies rarely materialized and most industrialized societies have were affected by the 2008 U.S. housing crisis and subse- weathered a variety of transitions through innovation. Yet, quent recession (Claessens et al. 2010). Therefore, if a sup- collapse is not outside the realm of possibility. Cuba experi- ply constraint is encountered, it will likely affect the entire enced a severe collapse in GDP when it lost access to a sig- world economy. nificant portion of its energy imports upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989, as seen by the large drop in the Where are Resources in Macroeconomic Growth dashed line in Fig. 1. In large part due to this constrained Models? supply of energy resources, Cuba soon experienced a 35% drop in GDP. The Cuban electric grid experienced severe Despite the potential for painful, global economic collapse supply disruptions which, along with the loss of imports due to natural resource constraints, economic implications from the Soviet Union, contributed to significantly reduced of resource constraints as a research topic receive relatively economic output. Cuba faced starvation and potential soci- little attention. One reason for this is that macroeconomic etal collapse during what Cubans call the “Special Period.” models rely on assumptions that downplay or eliminate the Strong communities, social cohesion, and policy meas- role of natural resources. The predominant models used to ures gradually transitioned Cuban society to a new normal examine economic output fall into two general categories: (Piercy et al. 2010; Friedrichs 2010). Cuba’s industrial out- (1) aggregate growth accounting models, such as the Solow put recovered eventually, despite energy imports remaining growth model, and (2) computational general equilibrium low. This advanced economy experienced first-hand the potential effects of a natural resource supply constraint: a severe collapse and painful, slow but eventual recovery. 1 Theoretically, it is possible to have a decline in total material con- Though Cuba adapted, the fact that the country needed sumption at the same time as population growth. This would occur if the rate of population growth is less than the rate of dematerialization drastic measures highlights how dependent modern-day per capita. However, as Smil points out in (Smil 2013), this has not society is on a supply of natural resources, and that a been observed empirically and is unlikely to happen. 1 3 Biophys Econ Resour Qual (2017) 2:9 Page 3 of 22 9 models, such as dynamic stochastic general equilibrium work implicitly assumes that at least the resource allocators (DSGE) heavily used by the Federal Reserve for eco- have perfect information regarding their deposits. Neither nomic and policy analysis (Del Negro 2013). These two the theoretical or empirical approach correlate particularly categories of approaches exist because they make differ- well with history. Norgaard comments that economists’ ent assumptions about the structure underlying the dynam- “theoretical models do not readily explain economic his- ics of macroeconomic aggregate measures. However, tory with respect to the most basic patterns and hence are both approaches have been heavily criticized for failing not likely to be useful…” to understand resource scarcity to account for biophysical reality and failing to acknowl- (Norgaard 1990). edge binding biophysical constraints on economic growth (Kümmel et al. 1985; Hall et al. 2001; Hoel and Kvern- Assumption 4 (Representative Agents) General equilib- dokk 1996; Hirsch 2005). The failure of both approaches rium models attempt to link macroeconomic output to the to account for the relationship of the environment and the underlying behavior of a few, representative agents. Each economy can be traced to four problematic assumptions agent stands in for a multitude of heterogeneous economic regarding resources: agents. Deep interdependencies that result from specializa- tion and path-dependent trade networks cannot be captured Assumption 1 (Factor Substitution) Most economic in even the most advanced representative agent model (Del models assume natural resources and built capital are sub- Negro 2013). The failure of representative agent models stitutable inputs into production. Resource scarcity is not to predict the massive global collapse in the international a significant
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