Gary Libecap

Gary Libecap is interested in common pool resource problems and how property rights institutions (private, group) can or cannot address them.  If he finds they have not or have been adopted late, then he is interested in examining the process of institutional change.  The motivation for this lies both in the wastes associated with open-access resources and the wide variety of institutional responses that are empirically observed. Moreover, it is often the case that even in the presence of consensus on the size and nature of the open-access problem (Tragedy of the Commons), the problems persist and are addressed only slowly and incompletely. For an economist, this presents a challenge—explaining why externalities persist in some cases or why they are addressed rapidly in others.  At the institute, Professor Libecap applies this research to the area of energy efficiency through economic and political initiatives.