Abstract—From the economic perspective, the major cause of resource exhaustion is the perfect elasticity of substitution of natural and man-made capital theory and positive discount rate policy. Based on the “economic man” hypothesis, this policy implements effective distribution of resource, but it also departs from sustainable development for its ignorance of inter-generation equity. In order to realize sustainable exploitation of recourses, we should stick to sustainable development as our principle, which could benefit protection and exploitation of natural resources.

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