This short paper provides a simple introduction on how a simulation model implemented in Microsoft Excel® can be optimised using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming and the compressed simulated annealing algorithm (Ohlmann et al., 2004; Ohlmann and Thomas, 2007). The standard simulated...

A target to reduce phosphorus flows into the Gippsland Lakes in south-eastern Australia by 40 per cent to improve water quality has previously been established by stakeholders. An integrated analysis at the catchment scale is undertaken to assess the agricultural land management changes required...

This is a pre-publication version of: Pannell, D.J., Roberts, A.M., Park, G., Alexander, J., Curatolo, A. and Marsh, S. (2012). Integrated assessment of public investment in land-use change to protect environmental assets in Australia, Land Use Policy 29(2): 377-387.

This paper presents models that predict two recreational fishing trip parameters: the length of a trip and the timing of a trip within a year. A discrete choice (logit) model linking the choice of trip timing to calendar events, the demographic characteristics of anglers as well as the nature of...

Allocation of fish resource is a controversial subject. Decision making is partly made difficult by the lack of knowledge on recreational fishing preferences and the value of fishing opportunities. This study investigates fishing site choices in Western Australia. Recreational fishing data...

This paper has been published in a peer-reviewed journal as: Gillespie, R. & M. E. Kragt (2012). "Accounting for nonmarket impacts in a benefit-cost analysis of underground coal mining in New South Wales, Australia." Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis 3(2): article 4. DOI: 10.1515/2152-2812.1101

We argue that previous assessments of discriminatory-price conservation auctions may have systematically overestimated their performance relative to uniform-payment schemes due to an inappropriate counterfactual comparison. We demonstrate that the cost curve (and not the bid curve) is the...

We examine under what conditions setting up a captive insurance company with reinsurance is an optimal solution for risk-averse firms when the insured firm, the insurer and the reinsurer do not know the probability distribution of some risks, and have conflicting estimates of this distribution.

Distributional equity concerns are often at least as important as economic efficiency and ecological sustainability in environmental and natural resource management policies. Until recently, however, economists have shied away from tackling equity issues, primarily because equity appeared as a...

Policy makers aiming to get private landholders to supply non-marketed environmental services may need to provide efficient economic incentives. Two ideas have been explored to achieve this: linking contract payments to environmental outcomes and submitting the contracts to competitive tender....