Safe Minimum Standards in Dynamic Resource Problems: Conditions for Living on the Edge of Risk
Abstract
Abstract Safe Minimum Standards (SMSs) have been advocated as a policy rule for environmental problems where uncertainty about risks and consequences are thought to be profound. This paper explores the rationale for such a policy within a dynamic framework and derives conditions for when SMS can be summarily dismissed as a policy choice and for when SMS can be defended as an optimal policy based on standard economic criteria. We have determined that these conditions can be checked with quite limited information about damages and risks. In order to analyze the SMSs in a dynamic setting, we have developed a method for solving optimal control problems where the state space is divided into risky and non-risky subsets.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in its journal Environmental and Resource Economics.
Volume (Year): 40 (2008)
Issue (Month): 3 (July)
Pages: 401-423
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100263
Related research
Keywords: Safe Minimum Standards; Optimal control; Critical zone; Threshold effects; Mixed risk spaces; C61; Q20; Q30;Other versions of this item:
- Margolis, Michael & Naevdal, Eric, 2004. "Safe Minimum Standards in Dynamic Resource Problems—Conditions for Living on the Edge of Risk," Discussion Papers dp-04-03, Resources For the Future.
- C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
- Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
- Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Michael C. Farmer & Alan Randall, 1998. "The Rationality of a Safe Minimum Standard," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 74(3), pages 287-302.
- Sarin, Rakesh K & Wakker, Peter, 1992. "A Simple Axiomatization of Nonadditive Expected Utility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1255-72, November.
- Crowards, Tom M., 1998. "Safe Minimum Standards: costs and opportunities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-314, June.
- Bryan G. Norton & Michael A. Toman, 1997. "Sustainability: Ecological and Economic Perspectives," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(4), pages 553-568.
- Broome, John, 1996. "The Welfare Economics of Population," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 177-93, April.
- Richard T. Woodward & Richard C. Bishop, 1997. "How to Decide When Experts Disagree: Uncertainty-Based Choice Rules in Environmental Policy," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(4), pages 492-507.
- Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
- Farmer, Michael C., 2001. "Getting the safe minimum standard to work in the real world: a case study in moral pragmatism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 209-226, August.
- Eric N�vdal, 2001. "Optimal Regulation of Eutrophying Lakes, Fjords, and Rivers in the Presence of Threshold Effects," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(4), pages 972-984.
- Clarke, Harry R. & Reed, William J., 1994. "Consumption/pollution tradeoffs in an environment vulnerable to pollution-related catastrophic collapse," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 991-1010, September.
- Cropper, M. L., 1976. "Regulating activities with catastrophic environmental effects," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15, June.
- Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon & Klibanoff, Peter & Ozdenoren, Emre, 2000. "Maxmin expected utility through statewise combinations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 49-54, January.
- Tsur Yacov & Zemel Amos, 1995. "Uncertainty and Irreversibility in Groundwater Resource Management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 149-161, September.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Grijalva, Therese & Berrens, Robert P. & Shaw, W. Douglass, 2011. "Species preservation versus development: An experimental investigation under uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 995-1005, March.
- Crépin, Anne-Sophie & Norberg, Jon & Mäler, Karl-Göran, 2011. "Coupled economic-ecological systems with slow and fast dynamics -- Modelling and analysis method," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1448-1458, June.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:40:y:2008:i:3:p:401-423For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Guenther Eichhorn) or (Christopher F. Baum).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

