In many resource management problems, the starting point is one involving a large number of users with imprecisely defined rights and an aggregate rate of resource use that is environmentally unsustainable. One possible policy response is to make formal or informal contracts with users, under...

In this article, it is shown that a wide range of comparative statics results from expected utility theory can be extended to generalized expected utility models using the tools of supermodularity theory. In particular, a range of concepts of decreasing absolute risk aversion may be formulated...

This chapter will discuss what economics can tell us about New Media. More interestingly, perhaps, at least to those concerned with the long-term impact of New Media, it will examine the implications of New Media for economics and economic organization, and offer some policy recommendations.

The relative merits of different property right systems to allocate water among different extractive uses where variability of supply is important are evaluated. Three systems of property rights are considered. In the first, variable supply is dealt with through the use of water rights defined...

The implications of supermodularity for comparative-static analysis in a generalized version of the separable-effort representation of a firm facing stochastic prices and a stochastic technology are. Previous analysis is generalized in two ways. General risk-averse, as opposed to...

In this paper, we extend the state-contingent production approach to principal-agent problems to the case where the state space is an atomless continuum. The approach is modelled on the treatment of optimal tax problems. The central observation is that, under reasonable conditions, the optimal...

The precautionary principle, presented as a guide to environmental policy decisions in the presence of uncertainty, has been the subject of vigorous debate. However, the has generally not been discussed in relation to formal theories of choice under uncertainty developed as generalizations of...

Questions relating to the allocation and management of risk have played a central role in the development of the National Water Initiative, particularly as it has applied to the Murray-Darling Basin. The central issues of efficiency and equity in allocations are best understood by considering...

In this paper, it is argued that, given its relatively short duration and high year-to-year variability, the MFP data set does not contain enough information to allow clear statistical discrimination between competing hypotheses. As a result of this lack of information, combined with the human...

Dual approaches have proved their value in many areas of economic analysis. Until recently, however, they have been virtually ignored in the analysis of choice under uncertainty.In this paper, we present a dual formulation of choice under uncertainty based on a few simple assumptions about...