PUBLIC LECTURE: Antipodean agricultural and resource economics at 60: Natural resource management

Australian and New Zealand research on the economics of natural resource management (NRM) has a relatively short history. Defining NRM as including water, agricultural land, marine renewable resources, nature conservation and forestry, 65% of all Australasian journal articles in the area have been published since 2005. The most-researched NRM issue is water, followed by marine renewable resources and agricultural land. Most of the NRM issues with a high level of economic research are issues that have had major policy initiatives in place at around the time of the studies, highlighting the high policy relevance of most of the research. For each NRM issue, we identify important contributions that have been made by Australian and New Zealand economists. These include the design and implementation of well-functioning water markets, the provision of strong critiques of agricultural NRM programs, advice on the design and implementation of individual transferable quotas for fisheries, and many more.