Public trustees at the state, federal, and tribal level are tasked with ensuring that those responsible for destroying or damaging natural resources sufficiently compensate the public for its loss. Those trustees have the fiduciary duty to maintain and restore the natural resources within the...

Much has been reported about the adverse effects of crude oil exploration as being an indispensable source of degradation in the environment of the Niger Delta Region in Nigeria. While the logical substance of such argument is not being contested, it is instructive to observe the existence of...

Economic and ecological systems are closely interlinked at a global and a regional level, offering a broad variety of challenging research topics in environmental and resource economics. The successful identification of key questions for current and future research supports development of novel...

Dynamic optimization problems cover a large class of problems in theoretical and applied economics. A simple iterative algorithm with fast convergence is proposed. It is demonstrated that the algorithm in a few steps produce excellent analytic (closed form) approximations including error bounds...

Traditional resource economics has been criticised for assuming too high elasticities of substitution, not observing material balance principles and relying too much on planner solutions to obtain long-term growth. By analysing a multi-sector R&D-based endogenous growth model with exhaustible...

This essay develops the "concept of stocks" – a conceptual notion designed to enable a clearer understanding of the interaction between the dynamics of ecosystems and the economy. The notion of stocks is formulated in a general manner based on set theory. The central attribute of a stock is...

Economists have a good understanding of intra-economic interdependence and a mature methodology of modeling it. Ecologists focus on the complex and sensitive interactions of species in ecosystems. This paper's objective is to suggest a new micro-foundation of ecosystem analysis based on economic...

Optimal harvesting of prey in a predator–prey ecosystem is studied under the condition that the existence of the predator has value. Predators (birds) and humans (fishers) compete for prey (shellfish). The behavior of the system is studied and conditions for optimal control are deduced....

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...

There is now increasing recognition that the world's marine ecosystems, especially coastal areas and semi-enclosed seas, are suffering from degradation and modification due to human influences. One of the most serious problems is nutrient enrichment, which in the long term harms productivity and...