Anne-Sophie Crépin, Therese Lindahl, Aart de Zeeuw
{"title":"Economics of Tipping Points","authors":"Anne-Sophie Crépin, Therese Lindahl, Aart de Zeeuw","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-040849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-040849","url":null,"abstract":"We provide a critical appraisal of the literature related to the economics of tipping points and regime shifts. Simple modeling examples of pollution control and resource harvesting illustrate the key aspects of the economics of tipping points and regime shifts. We show how economic management should be modified to consider tipping points in deterministic and stochastic settings and how they influence common pool resources and public good provision. This review also presents relevant behavioral experimental designs for tipping point experiments and discusses further in what ways models and empirical work could better speak to each other in future research.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"458 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Basic Needs to Higher Fulfillment: Resource Use and Its Impact on Sustainable Well-Being","authors":"Ugur Soytas, Ramazan Sari","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-035355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-035355","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding the association between resource use and well-being is critical for addressing global sustainability challenges. Resources such as energy, water, and minerals are foundational in satisfying human needs, yet their consumption is linked to complex trade-offs across individual and societal well-being. Well-being encompasses multiple facets—hedonic (pleasure-based) and eudaimonic (meaning-based), subjective and objective, and individual and societal—all of which interact differently with resource use. This review synthesizes insights from different disciplines and identifies key patterns, discrepancies, and gaps in the literature. It recommends a holistic framework for examining how resource use can foster sustainable and equitable societal well-being within planetary limits. The review concludes by offering directions for future research and actionable policy and resource management strategies. Thresholds for over- and underconsumption can help policymakers design just policies and prioritize across well-being dimensions.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Economics of Rural Development in the United States","authors":"Alexandra E. Hill, Sarah A. Low, Keith Taylor","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-120324-050230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-120324-050230","url":null,"abstract":"This article summarizes the current state of the literature concerning rural economic development in the United States and offers forward-looking recommendations for researchers and practitioners. We review the history of policies and movements that have influenced the US rural economy, spanning an early emphasis on agricultural expansion to post–World War II industrial development to today's more encompassing community economic development programming. The article defines and profiles the current, diverse nature of rural America, detailing its places, people, industries, and assets. It also highlights emerging research topics, data challenges, and innovative methods being applied to rural development, such as systems thinking and participatory research. Learning from this history, we advocate for forward-looking approaches that integrate place-based and people-based policies that recognize the heterogeneity of rural America and strategically deepen urban-rural linkages.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research-Driven Productivity Growth Redux: Are Ideas Really Getting Harder to Find?","authors":"Julian M. Alston, Philip G. Pardey","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-112024-022645","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-112024-022645","url":null,"abstract":"Recent studies using semiendogenous growth models claim that the slowdown in US productivity growth reflects a widespread and systematic decline in productivity of researchers—in other words, ideas are getting harder to find. In this article we challenge the underlying conceptual model, the corresponding measure of research productivity, and the apparent implication that declining productivity of researchers is clearly responsible for the observed slowdown in productivity growth. We present a range of evidence including measures for the national economy, agriculture, and wheat breeding, all of which negates the notion that research productivity is fading fast.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modeling Uncertainty in Integrated Assessment Models","authors":"Yongyang Cai","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-121624-104610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-121624-104610","url":null,"abstract":"Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are pivotal tools that synthesize knowledge from climate science, economics, and policy to evaluate the interactions between human activities and the climate system. They serve as essential instruments for policymakers, providing insights into the potential outcomes of various climate policies and strategies. Given the complexity and inherent uncertainties in both the climate system and socioeconomic processes, understanding and effectively managing uncertainty within IAMs are crucial for robust climate policy development. This review provides a comprehensive overview of how IAMs handle uncertainty, highlighting recent methodological advancements and their implications for climate policy. We examine the types of uncertainties present in IAMs; discuss various modeling approaches to address these uncertainties; and explore recent developments in the field, including the incorporation of advanced computational methods.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"173 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Land Protection and Social Equity","authors":"Katharine R.E. Sims, Jennifer M. Alix-Garcia","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-011624-040006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-011624-040006","url":null,"abstract":"Land protection initiatives play a key role in supporting biodiverse, resilient, and productive land systems. Understanding how they affect and interact with social equity is critical for long-term conservation success. Here, we review equity-relevant design and implementation aspects of protected areas, community-based conservation, indigenous governance, payments for ecosystem services, and direct regulation. Existing literature shows that unless effective benefit-sharing mechanisms are in place, land protection often transfers economic surplus from local communities to regional beneficiaries or reinforces existing distributional inequalities. Future work can contribute to understanding these mechanisms, including the institutional structures that facilitate procedural equity and the causal pathways that enable greater equity in specific economic, biophysical, and social contexts.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Storage and the Economics of Commodity Price Stabilization","authors":"Christophe Gouel, Brian D. Wright","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-112624-121752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-112624-121752","url":null,"abstract":"This review reassesses the economics of commodity price stabilization policies through the lens of the rational expectations storage model. In frictionless markets, private speculative storage efficiently smooths commodity prices; thus, welfare gains from public intervention require the presence of market or endowment failures, which are prevalent in agricultural markets in low-income settings. Optimal state–contingent stabilization policies raise welfare but are complex, crowd out private storage, and are difficult to design and implement. Simple rules—notably narrow price bands or storage-cost subsidies—offer more feasible approximations, with subsidies being more efficient. In open economies with high trade costs, storage can mitigate price troughs. Conversely, export controls can mitigate domestic transmission of global price spikes but are non-cooperative. Although storage policies stabilize prices, their welfare effects are nuanced. They entail large redistributive transfers that far exceed efficiency gains; accordingly, they should be viewed as second-best instruments, valuable when better-targeted alternatives are unavailable.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"91 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148552660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bernhard Dalheimer, Marc F. Bellemare, Weston Loughmiller
{"title":"The Geopolitics of Food and Agriculture","authors":"Bernhard Dalheimer, Marc F. Bellemare, Weston Loughmiller","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-112624-010824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-112624-010824","url":null,"abstract":"Food has long served as an instrument of statecraft. Yet agricultural economics typically analyzes policy through the lens of consumer and producer welfare, which neglects security externalities. We review the literature at the intersection of agricultural economics and political science, examining how food systems both shape and are shaped by geopolitical forces through the two channels of ( <jats:italic>a</jats:italic> ) domestic instability with international spillovers and ( <jats:italic>b</jats:italic> ) the deliberate use of food in statecraft. Our synthesis of key findings in the literature suggests that ( <jats:italic>a</jats:italic> ) food prices relate to riots and instability while ambiguously relating to civil war and violence, ( <jats:italic>b</jats:italic> ) the wide geographic spread of agriculture limits but does not eliminate unilateral coercive leverage compared with other strategic sectors, and ( <jats:italic>c</jats:italic> ) domestic food policies are strongly related to national security goals. Moreover, we point out the many extant data sets one can use to do work in this area and identify several research gaps in the literature. As global uncertainty intensifies, integrating geopolitical analysis into agricultural economics is essential for policy relevance.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148288849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert J. Johnston, Klaus Moeltner, Stephen C. Newbold, Dennis Guignet
{"title":"Valuing Water Quality Using Benefit Transfer Methods","authors":"Robert J. Johnston, Klaus Moeltner, Stephen C. Newbold, Dennis Guignet","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-034224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-034224","url":null,"abstract":"This article summarizes methods, prospects, and methodological questions for water quality benefit transfer. Benefit transfer is the use of welfare estimates from settings where original valuation research has been conducted to predict similar estimates for other settings, allowing quantification of benefits and costs when original valuation studies are infeasible. Water quality has been among the most researched areas of benefit transfer, in part due to requirements for benefit-cost analysis within policies and programs that affect surface and ground water. The article begins with a review of benefit transfer methods and characteristics of water quality that challenge transfer validity. We then explore alternative approaches for meta-regression modeling and value prediction to support these transfers, focusing on emerging methods that may afford greater flexibility than traditional parametric approaches and enable gains in transfer accuracy, while maintaining desirable theoretical properties. The article concludes with a discussion of unresolved questions and research needs.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148288913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flooding, Housing Prices, and Insurance: Evidence from the United States","authors":"Laura Bakkensen, Hannah K. Friedrich","doi":"10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-041300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-120524-041300","url":null,"abstract":"Flooding is one of the costliest natural disasters in the United States, and a major source of flood damage is to the residential housing stock. Given the value of housing, both as a major source of household wealth and to the residential mortgage market, a long-standing literature has examined how floods impact house prices and evaluated the protective role of flood insurance. In this review, we synthesize the literature examining the impact of flood risk and flood events on housing value. We also examine research themes in the US flood insurance market including the determinants of flood insurance demand, the impact of insurance on household decisions to manage flood risk, and emerging changes to watch in the public and private flood insurance markets. We then survey key data challenges and opportunities and conclude by examining who bears the flood risk in the US housing market. As climate change is expected to change future precipitation patterns and raise sea levels, flood risk and insurance will likely be even more important for housing markets in the future.","PeriodicalId":48856,"journal":{"name":"Annual Review of Resource Economics","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148288914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}