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Suggests free market ideas as solutions to environmental problems. Property rights solutions that encourage market processes are proposed for public land management, outdoor recreation, water quantity and quality and ocean fisheries. Also discussed are the problems of global warming and acid rain.

From the start, “free market environmentalism” may have been a bit of a misnomer. FME is not so much about “markets” as it is about institutional arrangements. As Anderson and Leal explain, “At the heart of free market environmentalism is a system of well-specified property rights to natural and environmental resources” (p. 4). Property rights provide the foundation for markets, and so establishing property rights in environmental resources enables individuals and organizations to pursue environmental goals in the marketplace. Pigouvian economists seek to alter human behavior by levying taxes and imposing regulations to correct for the “failure” of market prices to account adequately for environmental concerns.

Terry L. Anderson

Terry Lee Anderson is the Excutive Director of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, and adjunct professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has been one of the most influential figures in the free market environmentalist movement. His first major book was Free Market Environmentalism, originally published in 1991.

His work helped launch the idea of free-market environmentalism and has prompted public debate over the balance between markets and government in managing natural resources.

Donald R. Leal

Donald R. Leal is a Senior Associate at PERC, editor or author of three books, and contributing author to six books that cover various aspects of environmental policy.