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Australian and New Zealand research on the economics of natural resource management (NRM) has a relatively short history. Defining NRM as including water, fisheries, agricultural land, nature conservation and forestry, 65 per cent of all Australasian journal articles in the area have been published since 2005. The most researched NRM issue is water, followed by fisheries and agricultural land. Most of the NRM issues with a high level of economic research are issues that have had major policy initiatives in place at around the time of the studies, highlighting the high policy relevance of most of the research. For each NRM issue, we identify important contributions that have been made by Australian economists. These include the design and implementation of well-functioning water markets, the provision of strong critiques of agricultural NRM programs, advice on the design and implementation of individual transferable quotas for fisheries and many more.

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