We show that Stiglitz’s (1974) classic principal-agency theory of share tenancy does not imply, as commonly supposed, that the incidence of share tenancy increases with the tenant’s degree of risk aversion nor that share contracts are superior to fixed-lease contracts for risk averse...

Thinking about population as a driver of agricultural development provides insights into induced technical and institutional change, whether it be Esther Boserup's declining fallow period, modern crop varieties, or the specialization pyramid that arises in labor-intensive agriculture. The...

This paper develops a regional hydrologic-ecologic-economic model of groundwater use and a nearshore ecosystem. Particularly, we model coastal groundwater management and its effects on discharge, nearshore water quality, and marine biota (e.g., indigenous marine algae). We show that...

Despite abundant rainfall and groundwater resources, the State of Hawai'i has managed to erect so many barriers to efficient use that serious conflicts have erupted over use rights to water. In what is currently the most prominent battle, environmental and agricultural interests of windward...

Optimal recycling of minerals can be thought of as an integral part of the theory of the mine. In this paper, we consider the role that wastewater recycling plays in the optimal extraction of groundwater, a renewable resource. We develop a two-sector dynamic optimization model to solve for the...

In spite of a healthy demand for a renaissance in economic policy for agricultural development, the academic supply response is found wanting. The infusion of public economics into the economics of agricultural development, which thrived during the 1970s and 1980s, has stagnated due to the lack...

Optimal recycling of minerals can be thought of as an integral part of the theory of the mine. In this paper, we consider the role that wastewater recycling plays in the optimal extraction of groundwater, a renewable resource. We develop a two-sector dynamic optimization model to solve for the...

We review the economics perspective on sustainable resource use and sustainable development. Under standard conditions, dynamic efficiency leads to sustainability of renewable resources but not the other way around. For the economic‐ecological system as a whole, dynamic efficiency and...

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...