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In this paper, I develop the Ramsey program of an economy endowed with a
polluting non renewable resource. I show that if pollution is a flow resulting from
resource use or extraction, its adverse effects on current factor productivity provoke
a diminution of the resource use and a higher long run rate of growth. Also,
I show that an increase in resource dependence causes a lower long run growth
while abundance in resources increases the level of income. These findings tend
to confirm those that emerge from the recent resource curse literature. I then develop
successively two cases of competitive equilibrium and I analyze their ability
in decentralizing the Ramsey optimal balanced growth path. In the first case, the
resource is initially owned by the first generation of agents. Each period, elderly
agents sell their resource endowments to young households at an increased price.
In such a framework, I characterize the tax that allows to decentralize the Ramsey
allocation. In the second case, the management of the resource is given to an independent
trust fund. I characterize the optimal policy that should be followed by
this fund in order to decentralize the optimal equilibrium.
