The design perspective in resource and environmental economics

Despite the fact that most regulatory problems in resource and environmental economics are design problems, rarely have resource economists explicity adopted the design perspective in modeling such problems. In this note I argue that the design perspective should be adopted. I highlight the merits of the design approach by studying an old problem - the regulation of an open access fishery (OAF) - in a new way. I show that the design perspective has important implications for fisheries management.