Some 30years ago Gordon Tullock, in his capacity as Editor of Public Choice, made a pointed effort to motivate researchers to measure and quantify resource investments in rent-seeking activities. Despite Tullock's identification of this aspect of rent-seeking as a significant gap in the literature and call to arms, this remains an under-studied topic of importance. Why is this? In our opinion, the answer is that, for a variety of reasons, measuring rent-seeking turns out to be very difficult. In this paper we identify and discuss several of the difficulties, both theoretical and empirical, although we concede that our treatment surely is not exhaustive.

In this paper, we attempt to provide an economic explanation for the adoption of bill co-sponsorship by the US House of Representatives in 1967. We demonstrate empirically that key features of legislative production prior to 1967 (when House members’ support for a bill was indicated by introduction of duplicate bills) and post-1967 (when political support for a bill is indicated by co-sponsorship) are strikingly similar. Specifically, the raw number of supporters of a bill, whether indicated by duplicate bills or by co-sponsorship, is not nearly as critical to advancement of that bill through the House of Representatives as is the political power of the individual who introduces it and those who support it. The relative sizes of these effects are highly consistent over time. In effect, this finding means that the underlying factors of importance in the House’s legislative production function did not change significantly when bill co-sponsorship was adopted. This suggests that the change in operating procedure may have been driven by an intra-chamber struggle to control the legislative outcomes. We present empirical evidence that is highly consistent with this hypothesis—adoption of bill co-sponsorship in 1967 coincides exactly with the post-World War II peak in a concentration ratio of legislation passed in the US House of Representatives. Prior to the 90th Congress, there was a more-or-less steady increase in concentration of legislation passed by the five busiest committees that peaked at over 0.4 in the 90th Congress and then declined precipitously to under 0.15 by the 93rd Congress.

Humans sometimes, perhaps often, form deeply personal and important attachments to ‘things’ such as trees. Such attachments reflect the value these ‘things’ have in our lives and often are based on cultural (shared) or spiritual (individualistic) meanings. However, there has been relatively little discussion of environmental services that are symbolic, cultural or spiritual. One potential problem created as a by-product of this lack of discussion is that there may be a tendency to inadvertently trivialize the importance of cultural and/or spiritual environmental services. A second problem is that it is essentially inconceivable, at the present time, to consider functioning markets in which such services are traded. In this paper, I explore both of these themes. In terms of addressing the importance of cultural/aesthetic/spiritual values of trees, specifically, occasionally an event occurs that reminds us forcefully that these values are not trivial – indeed, they may be quite sizable – and command our attention as scientists and in policy discussions. The recent poisoning of Auburn University's beloved Toomer's oaks provides a compelling case study. With respect to the absence of markets for cultural/spiritual/aesthetic services, I seek to better understand why markets have emerged for certain environmental services but not for others.

We developed a methodology to assess the economic value of forested watersheds to improve water quality for public supplies. The interdisciplinary approach required collaboration between economists, municipal water managers, regional growth planners, hydrologic and water quality modelers. Data used in this project were derived from federal, state and local entities. We used regional growth projections with linked watershed and reservoir simulation models and cost-based valuation economics. Additional treatment cost to comply with Safe Drinking Water Act regulations was calculated using volume treated and simulated total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations. Simulated base TOC concentrations (3 percent urban) were compared with TOC concentrations predicted by 2020 (22 percent urban). Mean increase in daily treatment costs ranged from $91 to $95 per km2 per day. The developed methodology is applicable to other watersheds to estimate water purification ecosystem services and is recommended for use in future interdisciplinary modeling courses.

This special issue of Forest Policy and Economics is based on the papers presented and discussions held at the International Conference on the New Frontiers of Forest Economics, June 26–30, 2012 held at ETH, Zurich, Switzerland. This paper discusses the need of new frontiers of forest economics, provides an overview of the special issue, and presents thoughts about new frontiers. The paper suggests that all knowledge of forest economists is conjectural, and without the competition of contradictorily theories forest economics sinks into intellectual poverty. The progress of forest economics will need a never ending fabrication on new and venturous theories for solving problems and strong attempts to refute, to critically assess and discuss, and to test empirically the new theories. The paper discusses three areas for new frontiers of forest economics — integration of sciences using multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, incorporation and integration of various streams of economics, and answering the unanswered questions by developing new models and methods.

In recent decades, ranking has become an increasingly important feature of an academic’s life. Individuals, journals, universities and departments are all ranked. To an extent, this is an inherent part of what we have always done, as academics we rank students and we tend to rank them into one of four categories. As Sgroi and Oswald observe, in this symposium, rightly or wrongly the UK has been a leader in formal ways of measuring the research performance of universities. In many ways, this is a good thing. With respect to individuals and departments, it facilitates senior university officials in monitoring its academics, whereas in days gone by university officials largely had to take everyone’s word that they were excellent. This meant that for long periods underperforming individuals and units, relatively speaking, could survive and even prosper. Rankings also help the university when it comes to hiring new people; in economics at least, where they have published is the key factor in such decisions, with the odd gesture made to the ability to get grants. For academics themselves, rankings help them in deciding where to publish and also in keeping tabs on the progression of their own career. And for students, rankings help them as they decide where to apply to study, something which is particularly important for those wanting to study in a foreign country.

Faustmann’s formula is often used by forest economists but some landowners ignore the time value of money and rely primarily on some type of cashflow analysis. A cashflow method was used by “estate owners” like kings, land barons, and governments. We coin the term “estate owner’s method” to describe one version of cashflow analysis. This approach can be used for either a “fully regulated forest” or for a forest that is harvested using the single-tree method. When calculating a return on investment, all past investments are “sunk” and all future returns and investments are ignored. Only costs and revenue realized during the current year are considered. This method is occasionally used by some large landowners to justify long rotations. Long rotations are easier to justify when time value of money is ignored or when the interest rate is close to zero.

High total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations in Converse Reservoir, a water source for Mobile, Alabama, have concerned water treatment officials due to the potential for disinfection byproduct (DBP) formation. TOC reacts with chlorine during drinking water treatment to form DBPs. This study evaluated how increased urbanization can alter watershed-derived total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and TOC inputs to the Converse Reservoir. Converse Watershed, on the urban fringe of Mobile, is projected to undergo urbanization increasing watershed urban land from 3% in 1992 to 22% urban land by 2020. A pre-urbanization scenario using 1992 land cover was coupled with 2020 projections of land use. The Loading Simulation Program C++ watershed model was used to evaluate changes in nutrient concentrations (mg L−1) and loads (kg) to Converse Reservoir. Urban and suburban growth of 52 km2 simulated from 1991 to 2005 (15 year) caused overall TN and TP loads to increase by 109 and 62%, respectively. Simulated urban growth generally increased monthly flows by 15%, but resulted in lower streamflows (2.9%) during drought months. Results indicate that post-urbanization median TN and TP concentrations were 59 and 66% higher than corresponding pre-urbanization concentrations, whereas TOC concentrations were 16% lower. An increase in urban flow caused TOC loads to increase by 26%, despite lower post-urbanization TOC concentrations.

There are several aspects of journal‐level citations that, taken together, provide considerably more information than mean citations per article. This information is likely to be more useful, in terms of helping someone form more accurate expectations of the quality of a given article published in a journal, than the information provided by mean citations per article only. I provide data that both illustrate this point and offer a range of information about the citations to papers published in 248 economics journals during the period 2001–5.

We use the widespread public reaction to the recent poisoning of Auburn University's Toomer's Oaks as a poignant reminder that we sometimes, perhaps often, form deeply personal and important attachments to things such as trees. Whether derived from shared cultural experiences or unshared personal experiences, these attachments have valuable meaning in our lives. Such occasional reminders serve the useful purpose of helping us guard against inadvertently forgetting or trivializing these values as we focus on identifying the values associated with ecosystem function. The implied danger of doing so is that we also forget or trivialize these place attachment values when we make decisions that affect the trees in our world.

Economics as often defined is "the allocation of scarce resources." Because resources are scarce, in differing measure, they must be allocated efficiently. When people move and landscapes become altered, so too does the allocation of resources change, and thus economic concepts come into play. In this chapter, we explore some economic aspects of relevance to urban-rural gradients, paying specific attention to: (i) the changing structure of economies; (ii) shifts in land, labor, and capital as rural areas become urbanized; (iii) taxation and the scope of public sector activities; (iv) the distribution of income and wealth; and (v) shifts in the environment and in the provision of ecosystem services. While these facets by no means exhaust the set of worthy topics, the discussions are compelling because each one is, in the words of the late Nobel Prize-winning economist, George Stigler, "encompassing and of great moment." That is, the economic topics presented in this chapter touch a lot of peoples' lives and touch those lives in a meaningful manner.

Summary The scientific community is just that – a community – and the success/influence of any one individual likely reflects, at least in certain measure, the contributions made previously by others. This suggests that rather than merely ranking economists on the basis of raw citation counts, one might gain real insights about the giants laboring in relative obscurity by identifying who the authors of exceptionally influential papers drew their inspiration from. We identify the most‐highly‐cited (409) papers published in economics from 2001–2005, then examine who the authors of these high‐impact papers drew from in terms of developing the ideas/arguments/applications presented in these papers. We find that a very small group of individuals had a comparatively large impact on the economics profession, in terms of influencing the subsequent work of authors of extraordinarily highly‐cited papers. Further, there is relatively little consistency between our list of ‘giants’ and Nobel Prize winners in Economics.

ABSTRACT We investigate empirically the importance of a conjectured linkage between economic conditions and increasing party divergence with respect to national-level environmental policy in the US. Using data from 1970–2008, we find that increases in the rate of unemployment are associated with increases in divergence between the two parties with respect to voting on environmental legislation; a result that is consistent for both the House and Senate. We also report evidence of a positive relationship between party divergence on environmental legislation and real per capita income (inflation) in the House (Senate).

Using the Environmental Scorecard ratings of Congressmen and Senators published annually by the League of Conservation Voters, we explore empirically whether political support for pro-environment legislation, aggregated across each legislative body, is sensitive over time to changing economic conditions — that is, whether there is a political trade-off between economic conditions and the environment. Using LCV scorecard ratings from 1970 to 2008, we find evidence, consistent across both the House and Senate, that political support for the environment is related to per capita income, but this general tendency can be decomposed into sharp differences by party.

According to the United Nations Brundtland Commission Report (1987), development is sustainable if it “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The clear implication of this definition is that our current consumption and standard of living must be reduced in order to ensure that the lifestyle of future generations is not compromised. We must deny ourselves the beneficial use of petroleum, timber, and other resources today if such use lowers the welfare of future generations. But how realistic is “intergenerational equity” if we are rapidly exhausting valuable, non-renewable resources? In turn, aren't those who “live the good life” while arguing to sacrifice our present-day quality of life for the well-being of our descendants simply hypocrites? Sacrifice is indeed an apt description of the implications of sustainability. There are two cases to consider: non-renewable and renewable resources. By definition, our present rate of consumption of, for instance, oil (globally about 5 barrels per capita per year) necessarily reduces the amount available for future use. With renewable resources, if the annual depletion rate exceeds the annual growth rate, then overharvesting (of forests, fisheries, or wildlife) will reduce the amount future generations can obtain. But keeping present-day usage less than or equal to the annual increase in the stock only ensures that future quality of life is not compromised under the strict condition of non-positive human population growth. Maintaining the future standard of living of a growing population requires current depletion of a renewable resource that is less than the annual increase (ie the stock must grow over time). But, of course, holding existing consumption to less than the annual increase in the stock lowers the well-being of the present generation. Clearly, some adults sacrifice their lifestyle to improve the welfare of their children and grandchildren, but that's not enough to meet the “enduring” aspect of sustainability. The real question is, how much of our standard of living will we sacrifice for generations born 100 or even 1000 years into the future? The answer would appear to be “precious little”. Let's consider that non-renewable resource, oil. Assume there are 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the world (a recent estimate is less than 2.5 trillion barrels) and that the per capita depletion is only five barrels of oil per year (annual US consumption is about 25 barrels per capita). So, how much oil should we be using (assuming intergenerational equity for 1000 years)? If the world had a stable population of 10 billion people, 1 year of consumption would equal 50 billion barrels. But 50 billion barrels consumed each year for 1000 years is equivalent to 50 trillion barrels (not 3 trillion)! If all these assumptions are correct, we would run out of oil in 60 years (presuming that a less costly alternative energy source isn't discovered in the meantime). This rate of depletion is neither “sustainable” nor “equitable”. To be equitable for 1000 years, we would need to reduce usage to 3 billion barrels per year. This amounts to a 94% reduction in global per capita consumption. In fact, with respect to non-renewable resources like fossil fuels, sustainable use is an oxymoron. Most elected government officials, who (ideally) collectively reflect the will of the citizens of their respective nations, pass laws that encourage consumption at the expense of future generations – behavior that is neither sustainable nor consistent with intergenerational equity. This is because present-day votes and campaign contributions affect the political fortunes of today's elected government officials; future generations obviously cannot vote for or funnel money to today's politicians. Including the word “sustainable” in governmental reports and research programs may make some officials and readers feel good, but the truth is that most of us do not (and indeed cannot) live according to this ideal. Comparatively sustainable lifestyles (like the Old Order Amish communities in the US) exist in modern times in developed nations, but this alternative is simply unrealistic for most urban people and impractical at a large scale. Even for the subset of us who have this option available, the evidence suggests that, overwhelmingly, most instead choose a higher standard of living – one that requires less manual labor but is ultimately “unsustainable” and “inequitable”. Although many individuals can and do reduce their negative environmental impacts at smaller scales, the majority continue to imperil future generations' well-being – but those who “talk the talk” of sustainability while failing to adhere to that code are just deceiving themselves.