Well before Our Common Future (WCED 1987) popularized the concept of sustainability, the idea (if not the precise term) figured prominently in debates about scarcity and growth. The original Scarcity and Growth volume observed that: The classical economists—particularly Malthus, Ricardo and Mill—predicted that scarcity of natural resources would lead to…retardation and eventual cessation of economic growth. (Barnett and Morse 1963, 2) One of the seminal essays on economic growth and nonrenewable resources defined its topic thus: This study is an attempt to determine more precisely under what conditions a sustainable level of per capita consumption is feasible. (Stiglitz 1974, 123) The Foreword of Scarcity and Growth Revisited noted: …the public's recent questioning of whether or not it will be possible to provide and maintain a reasonably high material
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Pezzey et al. (2005) studied this question.