Research
My research focuses on the institutions that govern natural resources. I study how property rights, markets, and other policies shape environmental and economic outcomes. I am especially interested in the conditions under which property rights and markets perform better or worse than other institutions. This often leads me to focus on the contemporary legacies of historical policies developed during Westward Expansion in the 19th-century United States, when various new systems of property were developed.
The design, effectiveness, and political economy of market-based mechanisms to improve conservation outcomes, from fishing quota systems to non-use rights on public lands.
How property rights and leasing rules shape oil and gas, wind and solar, and carbon storage development, from fragmented ownership to the pricing of competing uses on public lands.
Water allocation, prior appropriation, satellite measurement, and the evolving challenges of managing water in the arid West.
Native American Property Rights & Governance
The effects of allotment, federal trusteeship, and institutional barriers on economic development and resource management on reservations.
Land Titling & the American West
New big-data insights into the history and long-run implications of nineteenth-century land policy and the political economy of the frontier.
Spatial Natural Resource Challenges
Spatial dimensions of resource management including fragmented ownership, wildlife migration corridors, stranded public lands, and collective action challenges.
Work in progress across all areas is listed under Working Papers.