International donors invest billions of dollars to conserve ecosystems in low-income nations. The most common investments aim to encourage commercial activities, such as ecotourism, that indirectly generate ecosystem protection as a joint product. We demonstrate that paying for ecosystem...

There is a growing interest in incentive-based policies to motivate conservation by landowners. These policies include full- and partial-interest land purchases, tax-based incentives, and tradable or bankable development rights. Using legal and economic analysis, this paper explores potential...

The destruction of natural habitats has prompted concerns about the loss of biological diversity. Regrettably, however, there is no consensus among either biologists or economists on the most meaningful measures of biodiversity. Fundamentally different definitions are useful in asking...

There has been considerable recent interest in the valuation of ecosystem services. We focus here on the value of such services in the production of market goods. Although the conceptual basis for conducting such exercises is straightforward, the data with which to implement them empirically is...

Placing production units under common ownership is often suggested as a solution to the problem of externalities. This will not always be true when there are decreasing returns to scale. An atomistic industry could be more efficient than a monopoly in some instances. Even when the "optimal"...

Intact ecosystems provide important global services. Many valuable ecosystems are located in low-income countries in which citizens are not in a position to provide global public goods gratis. To address this problem, international conservation and development donors have been making substantial...

When the application of pesticides places selective evolutionary pressure on pest populations, it can be useful to plant refuge areas—crop areas intended to encourage the breeding of pests that are susceptible to the pesticide. Renewed interest in refuge areas has arisen with recent advances...

Concern about “open space” is growing. Conservation advocates worry that private land use decisionmakers preserve too little open space. Yet private land developers are deciding on their own to preserve open space in new developments because it provides amenities to purchasers of lots....