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La consommation de ressources environnementales en incertitude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Alain Ayong Le Kama*
Affiliation:
Université de Grenoble 2, Commissariat général du Plan et EUREQua, Université de Paris I
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Résumé

Cet article présente un modèle dans lequel un individu représentatif consomme une unique ressource environnementale, que l'on suppose renouvelable. Nous supposons, par ailleurs, qu'il existe un ensemble de phénomènes naturels aléatoires susceptibles d'affecter le stock de ressource disponible pour la consommation. Nous analysons à l'aide de ce modèle les comportements de consommation face à une incertitude sur la disponibilité d'une ressource environnementale dans le futur. Notre objectif étant de dépasser les résultats, somme toute triviaux, qui font l'essentiel de la littérature sur la décision en incertitude, et qui consistent à remarquer qu'en présence d'incertitude, l'agent adopte généralement un comportement plus prudent quant à son usage de l'environnement que dans le cas où l'incertitude n'existerait pas.

Nous montrons d'une part comment la prise en compte successive des contraintes physiques, de disponibilité de la ressource et de solvabilité (ou de survie), auxquelles font face les consommateurs, modifie fondamentalement leur comportement, relativement à l'hypothèse de cycle de vie. Et, d'autre part pourquoi leur omission, ce qui est généralement le cas dans la littérature, peut amener à des conclusions éronées.

Summary

Summary

Our intention is to present a model in which a representative agent consumes a single environmental resource which we assume to have its own regeneration process. We also assume that there exists stochastic natural phenomena that affect the available resource stock. In the context of this model, we go further on the analyze of the implications on consumption behaviors in the presence of uncertainty on future values of an environmental resource stock.

It is shown that the presence of physical constraints significantly affects the consumer behavior, relative to the life cycle hypothesis, in the sense of a greater preservation of the resource. It is also shown how the successive introduction of both constraints in the consumer's program modifies his behavior and how omitting them, as generally the case in the literature, may drive to erroneous conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2004 

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Footnotes

*

Adresse: EUREQua, Université de Paris I, Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112 bd de I'Hôpital 75647 Paris cedex 13. e-mail: [email protected]

Je remercie A. d'Autume, pour les nombreuses discussions qui ont servi de base à ce travail, ainsi que F. Collard, J.-P. Drugeon, K. Schubert, B. Wignolle et tout particulièrement J.M. Tallon, pour leurs précieux commentaires sur les versions préliminaires de cet article. Je remercie également les deux rapporteurs de cette revue dont les remarques m'ont permis d'améliorer considérablement cet article. Je reste néanmoins seul responsable d'éventuelles erreurs ou omissions.

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