"We show that grandfathering fishing rights to local users or recognizing first possessions is more dynamically efficient than auctions of such rights. It is often argued that auctions allocate rights to the highest-valued users and thereby maximize resource rents. We counter that rents are not...

In the face of growing pressure on our natural landscapes and increasingly bitter conflict over their management and use, simply defending the status quo is not enough. Finding a balance between producing commodities, such as lumber, and maintaining amenities, such as open space, is crucial if...

Mention of the American West usually evokes images of rough and tumble cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. In contrast, The Not So Wild, Wild West casts America's frontier history in a new framework that emphasizes the creation of institutions, both formal and informal, that facilitated cooperation...

1. Why the crisis? -- 2. Cheaper than dirt -- 3. Who owns the water? -- 4. Water is for fightin' -- 5. Back to the future -- 6. The new frontier -- 7. Buy that fish a drink -- 8. Good to the last drop -- 9. The race to pump -- 10. You can't keep a good market down.

"Katharine Coman's "Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation," published in March 1911 in the first issue of the American Economic Review addressed issues of water supply, rights, and organization. These same issues have relevance today 100 years later in face of growing concern about the...