As resource conflicts grow, resource managers are increasingly faced with trade-offs among environmental assets. The management of the Columbia River system in the US Pacific Northwest is illustrative of such conflict. The Columbia River was developed to provide benefits of flood control,...

The water of the Great Artesian Basin is an important resource for the grazing industry in the semi-arid and arid areas of the Basin. The initial development of the Basin was a "free for all" in an open access environment. State governments now license bores to restrict the use of water, but...

The recent acceleration of regional and global integration of national economies has brought with it greater scrutiny of domestic policies that affect the competitiveness of industries in the international marketplace. Simultaneously, concerns about resource depletion and environmental...

This paper explores the likely impact of emissions trading design on transaction costs. Transaction costs include both the costs for the private sector to comply with the scheme rules and the costs of scheme administration. In economic theory transaction costs are often assumed to be zero. But...

The dynamics of a population and a resource are investigated in a maximin model based on Brander and Taylor’s stylization of Easter Island, in order to consider the sustainability of the society represented. There are continua of both regular and non-regular maximin solutions, the type...

A rising saline aquifer in the Coleambally Irrigation Area constitutes a common pool resource, characterised by costly exclusion and rival utilisation for regional irrigators. The approach outlined in general terms in this paper is the application of formal, empirical techniques to guide the...

Marine protected areas have been advocated as a useful tool in fisheries management. However, as protected areas they are a ‘blunt’ tool to manage fishery operations; in the sense that they do not alter the incentives of individual fishers, the outcomes from protected area creation are...

As Australia begins to implement the National Water Initiative, there are lessons to be learned from past experience in rural adjustment and rural assistance schemes. The experience is rich and the messages powerful. Government intervention in the process of adjustment and change can impede,...

Several global developments such as diminishing production resources, limits in the availability of water and the growing demand for bio-energy as well as sector-wide crises (e.g. BSE, swine fever, dioxin) have led to a changing attitude of society towards the conse-quences of the food...