the intersection of natural and social sciences as a source of innovative ideas for policy u. rashid...

The intersection of natural and social sciences as a source of

innovative ideas for policy

U. Rashid SumailaFisheries Economics Research Unit

Fisheries Centre, University of British [email protected]

Keynote at FAME, University of Southern Denmark

June 6, 2007

Peter’s Café in the Azores

General comments on interdisciplinary research

• Cross pollination is the mother of creativity;

• When you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines or cultures you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinarily ideas;

• Johansson actually claims that innovation will be easier if we just focus on an intersection point.

Examples of innovation from intersection points

• Evolutionary biologist Charles Dawkins:– found an intersection point when he

connected the field of genetic evolution with that of cultural evolution, suggesting that ideas evolve and propagate like genes;

– He called the building blocks ‘memes’ and that notion today is the basis for marketing strategies seeking to ignite fads that might spread like viruses in the population of minds.

Examples of innovation from intersection points

• Marcus Samuel, the star chef at Aquavit in NY:– did it by combining Swedish culinary building blocks

such as seafood, fresh ingredients and game with food from elsewhere in the world;

– The results has been delicacies such as tandoori smoked salmon, sea urchin sausage & lemon grass yogurt;

– Samuel achieved this by breaking the associative barriers between different fields of cooking, thereby stretching his ideas exponentially.

Thinking outside the box• People who break down their associative

barriers: – have generally exposed themselves to a range of

cultures (geography, ethnicity, class, profession or organization);

– are aware that there are multiple ways of approaching a problem, promoting divergent thinking and have a willingness to break the rulebook;

– Samuel for example was born in Ethiopia; adopted by a Swedish couple; his adoptive father was a geologists who traveled a lot with him;

– Not lucky to have Samuel’s experience – to break your associative barriers resort to reverse thinking!

Medici effect recommended

• Johansson spends time in his book to explaining to develop:– such transformative ideas;– how to overcome the difficulty of leaving your

traditional network to mobilize the new idea;– how to break past the fear that such risky

new ideas involve.

Eco(nomics/logy)

• The coincidence of the prefixes is thoroughly appropriate;

• The Greek root means household, and it signifies an interacting set of individual activities, both complementary and competitive with each other (for e.g.):– predator-prey in ecology;– economic growth in a country in economics.

Field of resource economics built on a 50+ yr model

• The Gordon-Schaefer model (1954);

• This model emerged from the interaction between an economist (H. Scott Gordon) and an ecologist (Milner Bailey Schaefer);

• What is the main implication of the G-S model?

To solve the problem of resource use

• We need cooperation among stakeholders;• Environmental psychologists and experimental

economists have shown that: – peoples’ behaviour not based only on monetary

payoffs but also on non-economic factors such as reputation & social acceptance;

– Games designed in non-economic situations lead more to cooperation.

• Implication: we need interdisciplinary studies to promote the needed cooperation.

The nature of things

• How time plays out

Concepts of value

• Ecologists:– An objective property of the resources.

• Economists:– An instrumental and marginal concept of

values.

• Policy makers:– A combination of both(?)

Fish for today; fish for tomorrow

• Ecology wants (wild) fish forever;

• Does economics want the same?

• Does society, or should society, want the same?

• Is this goal achievable?

Should society want the same?

“The Earth and the fullness of it belongs to everygeneration, and the preceding one can have no right toblind it up from posterity” (Adam Smith, 1766 Lecture on Jurisprudence).

Photo: NASA

Catch of halibut in Norway

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Years

Tonn

es

Is this an achievable goal?

Catch of Namibia Pilchard

0200400600800

1000

0 10 20 30 40 50

Years (1960 - 2002)

Cat

ch (1

000

tonn

es)

Newfoundland cod

Fish biomass and fishing intensity

• Biomass;• Fishing intensity.

Fishing Intensity

19001900

19991999

Biomass Biomass

Courtesy V. Christensen

1.8-2.51.5-1.81.2-1.50.9-1.20.7-0.90.6-0.70.4-0.60.3-0.40.2-0.30.1-0.20-0.10-0

Biomass t·km-2

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Bio

mas

s an

d c

atch

(m

illio

n t

on

nes

)

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

Fis

hin

g in

ten

sityCatch

Biomass

Fishing intensityBiomass

North West Africa: Changes in key fisheries variables

State of fish stocks over time

Source: Froese and Pauly (2004).

Can economics alone help?

• 1st order problem:– Open access/common property.

• 2nd order problem:– Sole ownership not sufficient: Why?

2nd order problem: Sole ownership …

• Will not necessarily capture all fish values (or total economic value; TEV);

• May suffer what I term the ‘frontloading’ problem.

The valuation problem

• The economic theory of valuation calls for the computation of TEVs made up of both use & non-use (market & non-market) values from fish;

• In theory it seems economics and ecology converge but do they in practice?

The practice of valuation

Survey of 9 leading environmental & resource economics journals (1994-2003):

• # of articles published: 4705;• # articles containing the words ‘non market’ or ‘existence value’ or ‘bequest value’: 43.

Sumaila (in press)

The ‘frontloading’ problem

Present Future

Future benefits from today’s perspective

Value

“Egoism is the law of perspectives as it applies to feelingsaccording to which what is closest to us appears to be large andweighty, while size and weight decrease with our distancefrom things” (attributed to Nietzche, 1844-1900).

Discounting in economics

Clark and Munro(1975)

ratediscount theis

fish ofunit per price is

functioncost theis *)(

fish offunction growth theis *)(

*)(

*)(*)(*)(

p

xC

xG

xCp

xGxCxG

The optimal population trajectory x = x(t) and optimal population for different discount rates

Adapted from a model developed by Clark and Munro (1975)

xM

Time, t

Pop

ulat

ion,

x

xL

xH

x0

0

The basic bioeconomic model of Clark and Munro (1975)



Low disc. rate

xM

Time, t

Pop

ulat

ion,

xxL

xH

x0

0




Medium disc. rate

Low disc. rate

xM

Time, t

Pop

ulat

ion,

xxL

xH

x0

0




Medium disc. rate

High disc. rate

Low disc. rate

xM

Time, t

Pop

ulat

ion,

xxL

xH

x0

0


Captured by Clark and colleagues

• Economics of overexploitation (Clark, 1973);• Intrinsic growth rate of fish (r);• The discount rate (d);

• d>r, could result in depletion of the stock.

Is discounting a problem?

• Individuals do not discount all future values at the same rate;• Studies show that discount rates to be highest for

choices involving relatively small amounts (Thaler, 1981; Hausman, 1979);

• Individuals appear to apply higher discount rates to amounts with a short delay than amounts to be received further into the future (Bonzion et al., 1989);

• Individual discount rates vary with personal characteristics, e.g., income (Gilman, 1976).

Alternative approachesproposed in the literature

• Zero discount rate: Problematic;

• Lower discount rate: How low? – Hyperbolic discounting (Ainslie, 1974); – Gamma discounting (Weitzman, 2001);– Intergenerational discounting (Sumaila, 2004;

Sumaila and Walters, 2005).

Intergenerational discounting (Sumaila, 2004; Sumaila and Walters, 2005).

• Born out of interaction between economics and ecology;

• An attempt to integrate the fast and innovative nature of economics and the stabilizing nature of ecology;

• Links the ecologist ‘fish forever’ with the social scientist ‘ensuring fisheries benefits to future generations’.

Flow of 1 unit of benefit in current

and discounted value

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

0 20 40 60 80 100

Years

Ben

efits

(bill

ion

$)

NPV accruing to each generation within 100 years based on conventional discounting

Conventional discounting

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

Generation 1 Generation 2

NP

V (b

illio

n $)

NPV accruing to each generation within 100 years based on intergenerational discounting

Resetting the discounting clock

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

Generation 1 Generation 2

NP

V (b

illio

n $

)

Intergenerational (IG) discounting: Discrete model

2

1

1

1

11

21

)1()1(

t

tttt

ttt

tttt CVCV

NPVNPVNPV

Sumaila (2004)

Sumaila (2004)

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

1 10 19 28 37 46 55 64 73 82 91 100Years

Dis

cou

nte

d n

et b

enef

its

Status quo GM

Restoration GM

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

1 10 19 28 37 46 55 64 73 82 91 100

Years

Cat

ch le

vel

Status quo

Restoration

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

1 10 19 28 37 46 55 64 73 82 91 100

Years

Dis

co

un

ted

ne

t b

en

efi

t

Status quo CM

Restoration CM

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

To

tal

dis

co

un

ted

ne

t b

en

efi

ts

Status quo CM

Restore CM

Status quo GM

Restore GM

Continuous time IG discounting

• Assumptions:– Present generation discount flows of benefits at

standard rate;

– New generation of size 1/G enters population each year: they discount at standard rate every year after entry;

– Current generation as decision makers discount the interest of future generations at a ‘future generation’ discount rate at the time they enter the population.

Sumaila and Walters (2005)

G

d ...

G

dd

G

dd d

.

.

. G

d

G

dd d 2

G

d d 1

1 o

year tJoin ... 2yr Join 1yr Join Present )(

fg2

fg2-t

fg1-t

t

2fgfg2

fg

t

t

tYear


IG discounting tableau

The IG bioeconomic model

time generationG ;d

d and

1

1

G

dddW where

T,..,2,1,0t ,)CV(WNPV

fg

t1tfg

T

0ttt

t


Comments on IG approach

• AER: Axiom needed;



• Time inconsistency;




• Property rights to future generations;

• Rawl’s theory with a time dimension;




• Property rights to future generations;

• Rawl’s theory with a time dimension;

• Group of mathematicians have used the IG formula to solved a conjecture;

• Will be having a lunch meeting with a UBC philosophy professor to discuss the idea;


• AER: Axiom needed;• Time inconsistency;• Property rights to future generations;• Rawl’s theory with a time dimension;• Group of mathematicians have used the

IG formula to solved a conjecture;• Will be having a lunch meeting with a UBC

philosophy professor to discuss the idea.• Idea attractive to policy makers ….


• AER: Axiom needed;• Time inconsistency;• Property rights to future generations;• Rawl’s theory with a time dimension;• Group of mathematicians have used the

IG formula to solved a conjecture;• Will be having a lunch meeting with a UBC

philosophy professor to discuss the idea.• Idea attractive to policy makers …;

Concluding remarks• Scope for collaboration between natural

and social scientists is huge;



• Do not be afraid to jump into the intersection of natural and social sciences because: • this is where the most policy relevant

research can take place;




research can take place;• the career prospects for researchers in the

interaction point is very bright;




research can take place;• the career prospects for researchers in the

interaction point is very bright;• The career risk of being in the intersection

point is decreasing.

Thanks for your attention

Photo by Asep, TNC

the intersection of natural and social sciences as a source of innovative ideas for policy u. rashid...

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