Economists since the First Industrial Revolution have been interested in the links between economic growth and resources, often pointing to resource scarcities as a hindrance to growth. Offering a counter perspective, this volume highlights the positive role that scarcities can play in inducing technical progress and economic growth. It outlines a structural framework for the political economy of scarcity and rents, and offers a novel way of organizing the evidence concerning the role of resources in industrial growth. This book proposes a major shift in the treatment of scarcity issues by focusing on bottlenecks and opportunities arising within the production system, and will appeal to economists and policy makers interested in the role of resources as triggers of structural change.

Luigi L. Pasinetti (born 1930) is arguably the most influential of the second generation of the Cambridge Keynesian School of Economics, both because of his achievements and his early involvement with the direct pupils of John Maynard Keynes. This comprehensive intellectual biography traces his research from his early groundbreaking contribution in the field of structural economic dynamics to the 'Pasinetti Theorem'. With scientific outputs spanning more than six decades (1955-2017), Baranzini and Mirante analyse the impact of his research work and roles at Cambridge, the Catholic University of Milan and at the new University of Lugano. Pasinetti's whole scientific life has been driven by the desire to provide new frameworks to explain the mechanisms of modern economic systems, and this book assesses how far this has been achieved.

Economists since the First Industrial Revolution have been interested in the links between economic growth and resources, often pointing to resource scarcities as a hindrance to growth. Offering a counter perspective, this volume highlights the positive role that scarcities can play in inducing technical progress and economic growth. It outlines a structural framework for the political economy of scarcity and rents, and offers a novel way of organizing the evidence concerning the role of resources in industrial growth. This book proposes a major shift in the treatment of scarcity issues by focusing on bottlenecks and opportunities arising within the production system, and will appeal to economists and policy makers interested in the role of resources as triggers of structural change.