Last update: July 24, 2001 . Thank you for visiting the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.
This site is dedicated to exploring the possibility for bringing market mechanisms and financial incentives into enhancing environmental resources through conservation. The focus is on the motivations and mechanisms for the introduction and use of profitable conservation technologies. We seek joint conservation and income opportunities for agriculture and rural areas. The approach rests on a foundation of Metaeconomics. This is an economic theory that specifically models the moral (doing-the-right-thing) dimension of environmental and farm/ranch/rural income enhancement.
Metaeconomics (see published and working papers applying and testing the theory) recognizes empathy as another main factor influencing economic actions. This theory suggests that individuals also have this empathic, others-interest in the environment in addition to recognizing the better understood egoistic, self-interest in using the environment. In simpler terms, perhaps buyers and sellers in markets of all kinds want to do the right thing . . . another kind of interest . . . as well as satisfy own self-interests. You are at the Market Mechanisms HomePage. Two sub-sites focus specifically on Carbon Storage and Marketing and Water Conservation and Marketing (also see Lynne HomePage).
Professor Tietenberg at Colby College, Waterville, Maine, USA, has constructed an extensive Tradable Permits Bibliography with special attention to Air and Fishing, and some to Water, as well as the History and some of the Theoretical Issues with respect to such market mechanisms. The Tietenberg Bibliography represents largely the mainstream economics literature that focuses on the market's role in helping the pursuit of self-interest. The bibliographic lists provided in the Water and Carbon parts of this Site transcend and go beyond the self-interest (ego) in the spirit of including the moral dimension reflected in the others-interest (empathy).
Water Conservation and Marketing