James Roumasset
Prevention, Eradication, and Containment of Invasive Species: Illustrations from Hawaii
Invasive species change ecosystems and the economic services such ecosystems provide. Optimal policy will minimize the expected damages and costs of prevention and control. We seek to explain policy outcomes as a function of biological and economic factors, using the case of Hawaii to illustrate. First, we consider an existing invasion, Miconia calvescens, a plant […]
Read MoreMitigating Runoff As Part of an Integrated Strategy for Nearshore Resource Conservation
This report first presents theoretical considerations for integrated resource management of forested watershed and nearshore resources, then estimates current economic benefits from nearshore resources (beaches and reef) as well as expected economic benefits, in the form of preserved nearshore resource benefits, from conservation of forest resources.
Read MoreEfficient Groundwater Pricing and Intergenerational Welfare: The Honolulu Case
Optimal water usage and pricing programs discussed in literature tend to take for granted the users’ willing to pay higher efficiency prices in order to obtain the resulting benefits. Yet proposals for marginal cost water pricing on Oahu have often been found to be politically infeasible because current users will have to pay a higher […]
Read MoreEnvironmental Valuation and the Hawaiian Economy
Economic planning and policy analysis are commonly criticized for their failure to properly account for adverse effects of economic development on the environment and other interactions between nature and the market economy. The limited and piecemeal curbs on land development projects, e.g. as provided by environmental impact requirements, fail to diagnose the major negative impacts […]
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