Payments for ecosystem services should be informed by how both the providing-resource and the downstream resource are managed. We develop an integrated model that jointly optimizes conservation investment in a watershed that recharges a downstream aquifer and groundwater extraction from the...

Among the ethical objections to intergenerational impartiality is the violation of consumer sovereignty given that individuals are impatient. We accommodate that concern by distinguishing intra- and inter-generational discounting in an OLG model suitable for analyzing sustainability issues....

Local and global changes continue to influence interactions between groundwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in precipitation, surface water, and land cover can affect the water balance of a given watershed, and thus affect both the quantity and quality of freshwater entering the ground....

A theory of payment for ecosystem services (PES) pricing consistent with dynamic efficiency and sustainable income requires optimized shadow prices. Since ecosystem services are generally interdependent, this requires joint optimization across multiple resource stocks. We develop such a theory...

We provide a synthesis of the economics of groundwater with a focus on optimal management and the Pearce equation for renewable resources. General management principles developed through the solution of a single aquifer optimization problem are extended to the management of multiple resources...

We analyze how the threat of a potential future regime shift affects optimal management. We use a simple general growth model to analyze four cases that involve combinations of stock collapse versus changes in system dynamics, and exogenous versus endogenous probabilities of regime shift. Prior...

We incorporate a renewable resource into an overlapping generations model with standard, well-behaved utility and constant returns to scale production functions. Besides being a factor of production the resource serves as a store of value. We characterize dynamics, efficiency and stability of...

We show that, in a model with substitutability between capital and resources, the path of sustainable development may be non-smooth, and may exhibit the overshooting property: starting from low levels of capital and resources, the economy may accumulate capital beyond its steady-state level,...

A standard model of the exploitation of a renewable resource by non-cooperating agents is considered. Under the assumption that the resource is sufficiently productive we prove that there exist infinitely many Markov-perfect Nash equilibria (MPNE). Although these equilibria lead to...

We experimentally study behavior in a common property renewable resource extraction game with multiple equilibria. In the experiment, pairs of subjects competitively extract and consume a renewable resource in continuous time. We find that play evolves over time into multiple steady states, with...