Abstract—From the economicperspective, the major cause of resource exhaustion is the perfect elasticity of substitution of natural and man-madecapitaltheory and positive discountrate policy. Based on the “economic man” hypothesis, this policyimplements effective distribution of resource, but it also departs from sustainabledevelopment for its ignorance of inter-generation equity. In order to realizesustainable exploitation of recourses, we should stick tosustainable development as our principle, whichcouldbenefit protectionand exploitationof natural resources.

Keywords- economic man hypothesis;positive discount rate;sustainable development  

1. Introduction

Humanhas being exploiting various natural resources to survive and satisfy theirneeds since their first appearance on history stage. Along with economydevelopment, especially the introduction of industrial revolution, daily useand manufacture industry had increaseddemand for natural resources. As aresult of predatory and irrational exploitation, various kinds of natural resources reduce rapidly, even getting close to exhaustion. Therefore,economical research on the cause of resource exhaustion and relevant solutionhas become an important subject in economy filed.

Modern western economistsascribe resource exhaustion to two factors: first,accordingto neoclassical economics the assumptionof perfect elasticity of substitution between natural capital and man-madecapital leads to over-exploitation of natural resources （RobertCostanza &Herman Daly, 1992）; and secondlyrelativelyhigh discount rate causes decrease of present value of resources, and thusencourage predatory exploitation of natural resources (Colin W. Clark, 1973).