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sepAbstract:
The depletion of forested wetlands is a pressing environmental concern, but has wetland depletion and conversion to agricultural cropland been excessive? A dynamic analysis of resource exploitation in the presence of environmental consequences is required. The structure and parameters of a model of socially optimal wetland use are found to bear a well-defined relationship to those which emerge from a private-market model of wetland exploitation, providing a basis for internalizing environmental externalities and for identifying optimal resource-exploitation strategies. Empirical analysis focuses on the area of severest wetland losses in the United States, the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Plain.
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