Home > Publications > Economics for Collaborative Environmental Managements

Economics for Collaborative Environmental Management: Renegotiating the Commons

Dr Graham Marshall, Institute for Rural Futures, University of New England, Australia

Mainstream economics has a tight grip on public discourse, yet remains poorly equipped to comprehend the collaborative vision for managing environmental and resource commons. This ground-breaking book diagnoses the weaknesses of mainstream economics in analysing collaborative and other decentralized approaches to environmental management, and presents a unique operational approach to how collaborative environmental governance might be brought to fruition in a variety of contexts, whether in industrialized or developing countries. The result is a powerful, useful and badly needed approach to economics for collaborative environmental management of the commons.

Book Review, ECOS Magazine, Issue 128, December-January 2006.
Click on the item 'Review - Diagnosing the shortfalls of economics' to read the review.

Contents

Part I: The Collaborative Vision • Progress, Sustainability and Economics • Part II: Theory and Method for an Economics of Collaborative Environmental Management • The View from Mainstream Economics • Developments in Collective Action Theory for Commons Management • An Economics for Collaborative Environmental Management (CEM) • Part III: Lessons from the Field • Challenges and Strategies for CEM: Insights from International Experience • From Antagonism to Trust: Australia’s Murray Darling Basin • Part IV: Grounding the Collaborative Vision • Rethinking Policy, Practice and Research • Myth, Enlightenment and Economics • Bibliography, Index

What People Have Said

'This book is simply a little gem. I have used it myself in my own graduate seminar. I have already written several colleagues with recommendations that they get the book immediately. So, I am not writing a rave book review and then not using the book myself. It is an amazing synthesis of earlier work as well as an excellent plan for future research in this challenging area of interest to environmental economists and policy analysts alike'.
Elinor Ostrom, 2007, Ecological Economics, vol. 62, pp. 759-760.

'... the author is able to maintain a balance between promoting his vision and the real difficulties and obstacles faced in achieving this vision. This, I think, is a reflection of his practical experience and a strength of the book. ... [T]he book is very useful and a must read for those involved at any level with the design and implementation of projects promoting collaborative work for environmental enhancement or protection.'
Alan Renwick, 2007, Journal of Agricultural Economics 58(2): 379-380.

‘ ... the author presents an excellent consolidation of pertinent economic theory and a methodology by which economic analysis can be applied to achieving the aspirations and goals of collaborative environmental management … This book will be a valuable reference for both policy makers and scholars looking to advance and empirically test economy theory in this complex, yet highly relevant area.’
Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 52(2): 214-215.

'[This book] raises the level of discussion to another level, and thus constitutes significant contributions to the literature on collaborative management. .... [It] pushes the field beyond uncritical normative studies into more institutionally focused examinations of performance.'
David Lewis Feldman, 2007, Human Ecology.

'... [T]he review of the economics of collaborative resource management is the real contribution of the book, as Marshall expertly draws together a literature that is often confusing and inaccessible ... [A]cademic staff and postgraduate students will benefit greatly from reading this text, as many of the insights offered by Marshall into economic theory can be applied to research domains other than resource management. For example, his discussion of adaptation and New Institutional Economics has resonances with any area of government policy, including my own research interest in regional development agencies.'
Andrew Beer, 2007, Geographical Research 45(1): 109-110.

'The concepts of collaborative environmental management [discussed in the book] could be applied in other fields, such as rural development where 'top-down' decision making has been the norm ... Managers can use this material to evaluate their way of managing and explore how the concepts of collaborative environmental management could benefit the organization.'
E.G. Smith, 2007, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 122: 494-495.

'Marshall's book is very accessible to non-economists and should be of great interest, particularly to those engaged in developing innovative but effective approaches to environmental management. But the book is equally important to practising economists who will be reminded how their thinking has been structured, resulting in the current management approaches, and, even more importantly, how these approaches can be extended to successfully include the collaborative vision underpinned by an evolving economic theory'
Ingrid van Puten, 2006, Rural Society 16(1): 116-118.

‘Marshall has re-grafted economics to the philosophical roots of collaborative environmental management, given stakeholders a pragmatic economics for "bottom-up" conflict resolution and eliminated the need for "top-down" economic experts. Beautifully reasoned and wonderfully practical!’
Richard B. Norgaard, Energy and Resources Program, University of California, Berkeley, US

‘If the potential of collaborative management is ever realized, it will owe a debt to this book. It provides a foundational economic theory of learning coming from complex adaptive systems thinking tested with field experience’
Allan Schmid, University Distinguished Professor, Agricultural Economics Department, Michigan State University, US

‘Marshall argues that mainstream economics, captive as it is of the prisoner’s dilemma and the dangers of free-riding, is in a blind alley when it comes to contributing to constructive debate on governance of the commons. This is a significant book, which draws on the new institutional economics to indicate a productive way in which economists could contribute to thinking on common property natural resource management'
Warren Musgrave, Emeritus Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of New England, Australia

‘Economic thought and emerging collaborative environmental governance are important areas of thought and application, but are mostly found at great distance from each other and very often in conflict. Marshall not only clearly demonstrates why this is so, he goes on to detail an alternative pathway that can strengthen both of these fields in both their theory and practice. This is a most impressive feat, and this is a book thoroughly deserving a very wide readership’
Stephen Dovers, Senior Fellow, Australian National University

Order Online