Jon Conrad
Cornell University, Applied Economics and Management, Faculty Member
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Computer and information scientists join forces with other fields to help solve societal and environmental challenges facing humanity, in pursuit of a sustainable future.
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This paper discusses a problem facing New York and several other coastal cities: how and where they should dispose of the sludge produced in the treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater. A dynamic model of sludge accumulation is... more
This paper discusses a problem facing New York and several other coastal cities: how and where they should dispose of the sludge produced in the treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater. A dynamic model of sludge accumulation is constructed that identifies conditions under which it is optimal to "cease and switch" or dispose simultaneously at both nearshore and offshore sites.
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ABSTRACT There is now strong scientific evidence that several species of baleen whale and possibly the sperm whale, have recovered to levels that would support commercial harvest. The stock of fin whales (Balaenoptera physatus) off the... more
ABSTRACT There is now strong scientific evidence that several species of baleen whale and possibly the sperm whale, have recovered to levels that would support commercial harvest. The stock of fin whales (Balaenoptera physatus) off the eastern coast of Iceland and the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in the Northeast Atlantic, off the coast of Japan and in the Southern Ocean are prime candidates for commercial harvest. Should commercial whaling be resumed? If so, what role should economics play in determining the level of harvest and management policies? A bioeconomic model for baleen whales is developed and applied to the stock of minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic. A delay-difference equation is used to model the population dynamics and an exponential production function is estimated relating harvest, to population size and the number of catcher vessels. If whaling is resumed, the optimal stock size and harvest may critically depend on the price-cost ratio and catcher productivity. We identify plausible combinations of price, cost and productivity where whaling is not optimal and the minke whale population in the Northeast Atlantic equilibrates at about 82,000 adult animals. Under a high price-cost ratio and high catcher productivity, the optimal stock ranges from 51,000 to 59,000 whales supporting a harvest of 1,600 to 1,750 by 90 to 115 catchers. The paper examines two economic arguments that might be advanced for prohibition of commercial whaling. The first is utilitarian in nature and the second is based on the extension of rights traditionally reserved for homo sapiens. The paper advocates a tolerant position, where individuals of different countries democratically choose whether they wish to allow or ban whaling and the import of whale products, with the proviso that no stock be threatened with extinction.
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Dynamic adjustment is an integral part of natural resource economics. Commonly, capital is assumed to respond instantaneously to changes in profits, while in reality adjustment may take place only with a time lag. In this paper, an... more
Dynamic adjustment is an integral part of natural resource economics. Commonly, capital is assumed to respond instantaneously to changes in profits, while in reality adjustment may take place only with a time lag. In this paper, an empirical analysis of capital (boat) dynamics in the North Sea herring fishery is undertaken. A discrete time model is formulated to model decisions
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Interest in programs for the purchase or transfer of development rights (PDR or TDR) as a means of preserving urban landmarks, agricultural land, and open space has resulted in a growing literature on the economic efficiency and incidence... more
Interest in programs for the purchase or transfer of development rights (PDR or TDR) as a means of preserving urban landmarks, agricultural land, and open space has resulted in a growing literature on the economic efficiency and incidence of these" new" land use ...
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... management dominates filtration and, in the case of mutually exclusive investments, is initiated when the concentration of phosphorus reaches 22.80 mg/L. INDEX TERMS: 6329 Policy Sciences: Project evaluation; 6309 Policy Sciences:... more
... management dominates filtration and, in the case of mutually exclusive investments, is initiated when the concentration of phosphorus reaches 22.80 mg/L. INDEX TERMS: 6329 Policy Sciences: Project evaluation; 6309 Policy Sciences: Decision making under uncertainty ...
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Stage-structured population models are commonly used to understand fish population dynamics and additionally for stock assessment. Unfortunately, there is little theory on the optimal harvest of stage-structured populations, especially in... more
Stage-structured population models are commonly used to understand fish population dynamics and additionally for stock assessment. Unfortunately, there is little theory on the optimal harvest of stage-structured populations, especially in the presence of stochastic fluctuations. In this paper, we find closed form optimal equilibrium escapement policies for a three-dimensional, discrete-time, stage-structured population model with linear growth, post-harvest nonlinear recruitment, and stage-specific pricing and extend the analytic results to structured populations with environmental stochasticity. When only fishing reproductive adults, stochasticity does not affect optimal escapement policies. However, when harvesting immature fish, the addition of stochasticity can increase or decrease optimal escapement depending on the second and third derivative of the recruitment function. For logistic recruitment, stochasticity reduces optimal immature escapement by a multiplicative factor of one over one plus the variance of the environmental noise. Using hard clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, as an example and assuming Beverton-Holt recruitment, we show that optimal fishing of hard clam targets the immature stage class exclusively and that environmental stochasticity increases optimal escapement for low discount rates and decreases optimal escapement for high discount rates.
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policies for renewable resource allocation
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A model for determining the optimal location of recovery resources is developed and applied to coastal Massachusetts. An optimal location pattern is one that minimizes the expected damage from unrecovered oil. Such a location was... more
A model for determining the optimal location of recovery resources is developed and applied to coastal Massachusetts. An optimal location pattern is one that minimizes the expected damage from unrecovered oil. Such a location was dependent on three factors: (1) The sensitivity of coastal zone resources to unrecovered oil, (2) the probability of one or more spills within a coastal zone, and (3) the rate of recovery in alternative zones given an initial location of recovery resources. Nine hypothetical situations were constructed relating to possible petroleum finds on Georges Bank and onshore developments in Southeastern Massachusetts. The location of recovery packages was determined for each situation. Preliminary analysis would indicate southern Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to be underprotected and priority areas for the location of recovery resources. Woods Hole would be considered a desirable location for such resources in that it affords relatively rapid deployment times to adjacent high‐risk coastal zones. Boston Harbor was selected as the location of the second recovery package and, if three packages were available, Plymouth would be chosen for the third package. On the basis of rough estimates of damage reduction three to seven major recovery packages would appear justifiable. A desirable financial/operational arrangement would include a recovery system financed from federal revenue generated by bonus bids and production royalties with recovery operations contracted to private firms.
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In the real options approach to capital budgeting, plans that allow for flexibility in the design or timing of an investment or economic action are valuable. Real options naturally arise in decisions to develop, extract, or harvest... more
In the real options approach to capital budgeting, plans that allow for flexibility in the design or timing of an investment or economic action are valuable. Real options naturally arise in decisions to develop, extract, or harvest natural resources. We (a) review the existing literature in the economics of forestry, fishery, water, and nonrenewable resources; (b) illustrate the real options approach in resource economics through a series of simple models; and (c) suggest open questions and new areas of application when taking a real options approach to the development and management of natural resources.
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Public finance in theory and practice. Prest, AR and Barr, Nicholas (1985) Public finance in theory and practice. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. ISBN 0-297787527. Full text not available from this repository. Item Type: Book.... more
Public finance in theory and practice. Prest, AR and Barr, Nicholas (1985) Public finance in theory and practice. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. ISBN 0-297787527. Full text not available from this repository. Item Type: Book. Additional Information: Edition: 7th edition. ...
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Resource Economics is a text for students with a background in calculus, intermediate microeconomics, and a familiarity with the spreadsheet software Excel. The book covers basic concepts, shows how to set up spreadsheets to solve dynamic... more
Resource Economics is a text for students with a background in calculus, intermediate microeconomics, and a familiarity with the spreadsheet software Excel. The book covers basic concepts, shows how to set up spreadsheets to solve dynamic allocation problems, and presents economic models for fisheries, forestry, nonrenewable resources, stock pollutants, option value, and sustainable development. Within the text, numerical examples are posed and solved using Excel's Solver. Through these examples and additional exercises at the end of each chapter, students can make dynamic models operational, develop their economic intuition, and learn how to set up spreadsheets for the simulation of optimization of resource and environmental systems.
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In this book, Jon Conrad and Colin Clark develop the theory of resource economics. To begin, they provide an introduction to the required techniques of dynamic optimization. Throughout the book they build the reader's understanding... more
In this book, Jon Conrad and Colin Clark develop the theory of resource economics. To begin, they provide an introduction to the required techniques of dynamic optimization. Throughout the book they build the reader's understanding with many fully-worked problems and numerical examples. The authors have written this text in the belief that the theory and concepts of resource are more quickly learned, more effectively made operational, and more truly understood if the reader is exposed to carefully explained numerical examples. By working through the problems at the end of each chapter, students will learn the techniques to be used in empirical studies of natural resource systems. The first chapter provides an introduction to optimization, including constrained optimization, dynamic allocation problems, dynamic programming, continuous time problems, and the maximum principle, and a discussion of various numerical and graphical techniques. The remaining chapters deal in depth with the economics of renewable resources, nonrenewable resources, with environmental management and with stochastic resource models.
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Downloadable! Shortages of wood for burning and construction have begun to create serious environmental problems in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya is of particular interest both because of its high population pressure and its commitment to au... more
Downloadable! Shortages of wood for burning and construction have begun to create serious environmental problems in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya is of particular interest both because of its high population pressure and its commitment to au active reforestation movement. This ...
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Page 1. QUASI-OPTION VALUE AND THE EXPECTED VALUE OF INFORMATION JON M. CONRAD I. INTRODUCTION Kenneth ... respectively. 2. If the two generations do not overlap, the current generation will never know the scalar Ws. ...
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Abstract An open access model is formulated where X is a renewable resource and E is the level of effort devoted to harvest. Net growth is assumed to exhibit critical depensation and the open access system is described by two nonlinear... more
Abstract An open access model is formulated where X is a renewable resource and E is the level of effort devoted to harvest. Net growth is assumed to exhibit critical depensation and the open access system is described by two nonlinear differential equations Xr X X K,X KqXE • =−,−,− (),( ) 11,and Ep,sqXE cE • =− − α[( )
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The concept of coevolution is reviewed and a model is developed in an attempt to make the concept operational. The location, scale, and timing of economic activities in a buffer zone to a park or preserve are related to an index of... more
The concept of coevolution is reviewed and a model is developed in an attempt to make the concept operational. The location, scale, and timing of economic activities in a buffer zone to a park or preserve are related to an index of biodiversity. Coevolution would occur if a ...
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Interest in programs for the purchase or transfer of development rights (PDR or TDR) as a means of preserving urban landmarks, agricultural land, and open space has resulted in a growing literature on the economic efficiency and incidence... more
Interest in programs for the purchase or transfer of development rights (PDR or TDR) as a means of preserving urban landmarks, agricultural land, and open space has resulted in a growing literature on the economic efficiency and incidence of these" new" land use ...
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We propose a novel, distance-and density-dependent specification of externalities that captures spatial dynamics within and between neighboring land parcels. We use this specification to model the short-and long-distance diffusion and... more
We propose a novel, distance-and density-dependent specification of externalities that captures spatial dynamics within and between neighboring land parcels. We use this specification to model the short-and long-distance diffusion and control of an infectious disease in two privately-owned and ecologically-connected vineyards. Using computational experiments to generate individual and aggregate payoffs, our results suggest that ignoring the within-parcel spatial dynamics in the model may overestimate the social cost of an externality. We find that increased resource value heterogeneity, defined as the difference in grape prices received by the two vineyards, has a detrimental impact on aggregate payoffs.
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There is now strong scientific evidence that several species of baleen whale and possibly the sperm whale, have recovered to levels that would support commercial harvest. The stock of fin whales (Balaenoptera physatus) off the eastern... more
There is now strong scientific evidence that several species of baleen whale and possibly the sperm whale, have recovered to levels that would support commercial harvest. The stock of fin whales (Balaenoptera physatus) off the eastern coast of Iceland and the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in the Northeast Atlantic, off the coast of Japan and in the Southern Ocean are prime candidates for commercial harvest. Should commercial whaling be resumed? If so, what role should economics play in determining the level of harvest and management policies? A bioeconomic model for baleen whales is developed and applied to the stock of minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic. A delay-difference equation is used to model the population dynamics and an exponential production function is estimated relating harvest, to population size and the number of catcher vessels. If whaling is resumed, the optimal stock size and harvest may critically depend on the price-cost ratio and catcher productiv...
"A recent article by Lauck et al. (1998) questions our ability to manage marine fisheries in the face of "persistent and irreducible scientific uncertainty." This paper examines the role that a safe minimum biomass level... more
"A recent article by Lauck et al. (1998) questions our ability to manage marine fisheries in the face of "persistent and irreducible scientific uncertainty." This paper examines the role that a safe minimum biomass level (SMBL) might play when stochastic recruitment is compounded by unbiased (honest) observation error. Specifically, a bioeconomic optimum is combined with a 5MBL to formulate a linear, total allowable catch (TAC) policy. In a deterministic world such a policy may asymptotically guide an overfished stock to the optimum. In a stochastiC model, the TAC policy will result in a distribution of stock and harvest about the bioeconomic optimum. The approach is applied to the Norwegian spring-spawning herring, a once abundant and highly migratory species in the northeast Atlantic. The effectiveness of the proposed 5MBL for spring-spawning herring is examined with stochastic recruitment, and observation error. Observation error greatly increases the coefficient o...