Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Economics Research Institute Study Paper

Volume

19

Publisher

Utah State University Department of Economics

Publication Date

2000

Rights

Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact the Institutional Repository Librarian at digitalcommons@usu.edu.

First Page

1

Last Page

23

Abstract

We use the theory of continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) to analyze hitherto unstudied questions about jointly determined ecological-economic systems. Two specific questions are examined. First, on the methodological front, we show how the theory of CTMCs can be used to effectively model dynamic and stochastic ecological-economic systems. Then, given recent concern about the sustainability of desirable states and lock-in into undesirable states, we partition the state space of our stylized ecological-economic system into good and bad states, and demonstrate the formal relationship between these two sets of states. Second, we discuss a way of looking at the task of managing ecological-economic systems that captures this formal link between the good and the bad states, and has other desirable properties.

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