It is often argued that, ethically, resource rents should accrue to all citizens. Yet, in reality, the rents from exploiting national resources are often concentrated in the hands of a few. If resource rents were to be taxed, on the other hand, substantial amounts of public money could be raised and used to cover the population's infrastructure needs, such as access to electricity, water, sanitation, communication technology and roads, which all play important roles in a nation's economic development process. Here, the authors examine to what extent existing resource rents could be used to provide universal access to these infrastructures.

The small-scale fisheries sector in many Pacific islands is facing increasing challenges in relation to resource availability, economic opportunity, and demographic and social pressure. In particular, intensifying cash-oriented livelihood strategies can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and threaten food security and resource conservation. In this paper the authors develop a bio-economic model and a quantitative measure of resilience in order to explore the interaction between socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and to analyze the potential role that cooperation and collective arrangements can play in this interaction to maintain the viability of the system. Based on the case of the system known as wantok typically found in the Solomon Islands, numerical examples are used to explore the potential gain that cooperation between fishers can bring in terms of subsistence, profitability and ecological performances, as well as the resilience of the whole system to shocks.

The introduction and adoption of new technologies is an important component of development projects. Many technologies that could spur considerable increase in welfare, however, are often adopted at low rates even when donors and NGOs have invested their effort in them heavily. This paper develops a framework to analyze inefficiencies caused by fit-risk (potential users are not certain whether the technology will fit their needs, lifestyles, social feedback or capabilities), and the role of marketing tools, such as demonstration, in reducing fit-risk and enhancing the efficiency of development projects. We find that, in the presence of fit-risk, there is always unrealized demand and resource waste. Donors who ignore fit-risk always overestimate the project value and over-subsidize the products they are promoting. We identify conditions under which introducing demonstration may help alleviate fit-risk and improve the overall project values. The impact of eliminating fit-risk on the project uptake depends on the probability of fit.

This paper introduces a household model of private investment in storm protection under an endogenous risk framework to determine how defensive self-protection and self-insurance expenditures by coastal households to mitigate storm-inflicted damages are affected by the availability of public programs and the presence of a mangrove forest. The theoretical results show that publicly constructed physical barriers and mangroves encourage self-protection but discourage self-insurance expenditures. However, public disaster relief and rehabilitation programs lead to the crowding-out of self-protection but the crowding-in of self-insurance. Our empirical analysis of coastal households in Bangladesh impacted by Cyclone Sidr reveals partial support for the crowding-out and crowding-in effects of public investments and programs. Households located in a mangrove-protected area invest more in self-protection and less in self-insurance. Other controls, such as household socio-economic characteristics, also influence and add a degree of complexity to the relationship.

The structure of stated preference questions to value consumption from public infrastructure can vary depending on the conditions of consumption facing the household. Specifically, a good could be offered as a quasi-public or quasi-private good. This paper demonstrates how consumption from two alternative electricity allocation options can be valued using two types of stated preference questions. Since surveyed households were asked two types of questions, the authors develop a joint model of a contingent valuation question and a contingent quantity behavior response that allows for correlation in error terms across models. In their application to two villages in Rwanda, the authors find higher WTP for electricity consumed as a quasi-private good rather than a quasi-public good, with four hours of electricity per day, only in the evening. They also find correlation in the error terms across the two models, suggesting that their joint estimator is more efficient than estimating each model individually.

Adaptation costs to climate change vary widely across countries, especially between developed and developing countries. Adaptation costs also influence a country's decision to abate and join international environmental agreements (IEAs). In this paper, the authors study how these cost differences affect participation incentives. Their model identifies two channels through which adaptation affects free-riding incentives: carbon leakage and cost asymmetry in adaptation. In contrast with the common view, the authors find that the presence of adaptation is not necessarily an impediment to cooperation on abatement. They also present conditions under which adaptation can strengthen or weaken free-riding incentives. The results serve as a cautionary tale to policy makers and suggest that policies directed at reducing carbon leakage and/or cost differences between developed and developing countries may also affect the success and failure of IEAs.