This article presents lessons from the rich adoption literature for the nascent research on adaptation. Individuals' adoption choices are affected by profit and risk considerations and by credit and biophysical constraints. New technologies spread gradually, reflecting heterogeneity among...

We extend Real Option Theory to evaluate natural resource development projects that may bring negative net benefits and require costly restoration. Based on a new concept, irreversibility cost, we show that the degree of irreversibility becomes an endogenous choice, rather than an exogenously...