Resource Competition and Climate Change

摘要

The extraction and consumption rate of fossil resources are the most crucial determinantsfor the speed of the accompanying process of global warming. Supplementing the literatureon supply considerations of resource owners we argue that long-run competition for resourceextraction rights may be another driver towards inefficiently high extraction quantities in theshort-run. Western oil firms compete for extraction rights of international resource stocks whoseowners do not possess the necessary experience to develop the resources themselves. We presenta model in which the development of domestic oil fields is an investment towards internationalcompetitiveness since experience can be accumulated via learning-by-doing. Consequently firmswith higher extraction rates gain a competitive advantage regarding the exploration of internationalresources over their competitors. Whenever the firms expect to be able to capitalise onthe competitive advantage an inefficiently high domestic extraction rate follows. The inefficiencyoriginates from the action of a single oil firm which tries to attract more future extraction rightswhile neglecting the negative effects on the other competitors which go beyond its benefit. Theresulting steeper domestic extraction path implies short-run overextraction and exacerbates theproblem of global warming. In a concluding analysis we propose measures to correct the marketfailure.