Technological change, population dynamics, and natural resource depletion

How does technological change affect the depletion of non-renewable natural resources? We argue that to answer this question it is necessary to account for the interaction between skill-biased technological change, population dynamics and their effects on natural resource use. Skill-biased technolgical change leads in a non-malthusian world to a decline in the long-run growth rate of the population. Furthermore, skill-biased technological change is associated with a lower long-run depletion rate of natural resources, whereas the transition to a long-run equilibrium is characterized by an inverse relationship between the growth rate of the population and the depletion rate of natural resources. In the context of a shrinking or stationary population, the emergence of sustained economic growth depends on the existence of positive intertemporal knowledge spillovers with respect to research and development.