It is common wisdom that open-access leads to the inefficient use of resources and private ownership of resources improves efficiency. However, the impact of enclosure and efficient management of some resource pools on other open-access resource pools is poorly recognized. The problem is common...

Although much has been written about monopoly extraction of natural resources, the case of a resource being sold in two separate markets has escaped notice. We find that a monopolist facing two different iso-elastic demand schedules extracts more rapidly than the social planner, whether or not...

Problems of optimal natural resource extraction that were first addressed by economists in the contexts of fisheries and forests have reemerged in the context of a newly recognized resource: antibiotic effectiveness. This review introduces economists to the growing literature on optimal use,...

The topics discussed in the Handbook on the Economics of Natural Resources are essential for those looking to understand how best to use and conserve the resources that form the foundation for human well-being. These include nonrenewable resources, modeling of biological resources, conservation...

We consider a health authority seeking to allocate annual budgets optimally over time to minimize the discounted social cost of infection(s) evolving in a finite set of groups. This optimization problem is challenging since the standard SIS epidemiological model describing the spread of the...

The global spread of diseases such as swine flu and SARS highlights the difficult decision governments face when presented with evidence of a local outbreak. Reporting the outbreak may bring medical assistance but is also likely to trigger trade sanctions by countries hoping to contain the...