Markets vs. Mandates is based on the Hoover Institution’s founding principle of generating ideas that advance healthy and free societies. The research program examines tradeoffs of market-driven and mandate approaches for promoting environmental quality and clean energy. Whereas mandates rely on politics and administrative rule-making to assign objectives and command-and-control mechanisms to achieve them, markets rely on incentives of resource owners and entrepreneurs to discover and respond to environmental demands of populations – whether this is for stable climate, cleaner air or water, or more biodiversity.

This program supports research across disciplines, and it convenes leaders in academia, business, and government, to address the following questions. When are markets or mandates more likely to improve actual environmental conditions? Which approach entails lower costs and fewer unwanted consequences? The goal is to determine when, if, and how institutions and policies can improve environmental quality while also promoting economic prosperity and individual freedom.

Leadership
Terry Anderson

Terry Anderson

John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow (Adjunct)

Terry L. Anderson has been a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1998 and is currently the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow (adjunct). He is the past president of the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, MT, and a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University where he won many teaching awards during his 25 year career.

Dominic Parker

Dominic Parker

Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow (Adjunct)

Dominic (Nick) Parker is the Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and the Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has won several awards for research and teaching. He is a senior fellow at the Property Environment Research Center and a regular lecturer for the Ronald Coase Institute and the Elinor Ostrom Workshop.

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