Issue 90: Highlights 1987

Turning thirty-five was the highlight for Resources for the Future in 1987. V. Kerry Smith presented the keynote lecture at our anniversary celebration, and a summary of his remarks leads off this issue of Resources. In it he recalls the foundations of resource economics and points toward its future.

Professor Smith asserts that the purpose of resource economics—to clarify the debate about natural resources—remains as important as ever. But he also notes that the substance of the issues has changed. Thirty-five years ago, the debate centered on individual resource development projects having circumscribed impacts and tangible benefits and costs. Today's issues involve policies with more pervasive consequences and more subtle values. Smith argues that the continuing success of resource economics requires new methods of resource evaluation that respond to these changes.

In another article related to our anniversary, Hans Landsberg looks back on the report of the President's Commission on Materials Policy, Resources for Freedom, itself being thirty-five years old and one of the principal forces behind the founding of RFF. He concludes that, despite the changes that have taken place since 1952, the report has enduring value because of its approach to resource problems. The commission's stress on economic analysis, its embrace of both growth and conservation, and its essential optimism about the future are legacies that continue to influence policy debates.

Continuity of purpose in the face of changing circumstances is a theme shared by the other contributors to this issue. Lawrence Scheinman finds that the world of the International Atomic Energy Agency is profoundly different from that at its creation thirty years ago. Yet the agency's central purpose remains so critical that, in his view, if the organization did not exist today, it would have to be invented.

Paul Portney and Michael Dodman speak to the need for change in two other established settings, environmental protection and the electric utility industry. Portney addresses the need for more reliable environmental statistics, long a weak link in environmental policy making and analysis. Dodman reviews the trend toward competition in the traditionally monopolistic utility industry.

This "Highlights" issue thus fairly reflects RFF at thirty-five. We remain committed to our continuing surveillance of issues in natural resources and the environment. And we understand that our research will continue to elevate debates about these issues only if it anticipates how the world is changing around us.

— Robert W. Fri, President and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future