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Biology as a Source of Non-convexities in Ecological Production Functions

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Abstract

Generating ecological production functions, including harvest yield functions, is a high priority research area. Most yield functions used in economics and ecology rely on convexity properties of species growth functions, but convexity is shown here to depend on whether realistic biology is incorporated. Optimizing behavior by individual organisms is connected with species population dynamics in order to derive growth functions in a general equilibrium ecosystem model. Non convexities are shown to be an inherent property of the growth functions owing to familiar biological processes including predator-prey and competitive relations, predator satiation and prey substitution. The growth functions generate yield functions that are problematic for management, because they exhibit kinked average revenue curves, discontinuous marginal revenue curves, and knife edge optimum effort levels where a small increase above the optimum effort can rapidly deplete the stock. These phenomena can be explained entirely by the underlying biological processes.

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  1. Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave., 3985, Laramie, Wyoming, 82071, USA

    John Tschirhart

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Tschirhart, J. Biology as a Source of Non-convexities in Ecological Production Functions. Environ Resource Econ 51, 189–213 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-011-9494-6

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