Managing a Resource Under Pressure
ECON 341 team project guideline
The challenge
Work in a team of three to investigate one natural resource system under pressure. Your job is not to write a general report about a resource. Your job is to make and defend an economic argument:
Given a clearly defined resource stock, a set of decision-makers, and an institutional setting, which policy rule would improve the outcome—and what trade-offs would it create?
The final product may be theoretical, empirical, or a combination of both. Any empirical dataset and any change in team membership or topic require instructor approval.
A strong question has five parts
- Resource stock: What changes through time or across space?
- Decision margin: What can a harvester, landowner, household, insurer, community, or regulator choose?
- Institution: Which ownership, access, pricing, liability, or collective-choice rule shapes that decision?
- Outcome: What will you explain or compare—stock, harvest, land use, exposure, coverage, welfare, or distribution?
- Policy contrast: Which feasible alternatives will you evaluate?
Question builder
Use this form to get started:
How would [policy or institution] change [decision or resource outcome] for [place and population], relative to [status quo or alternative], once we account for [dynamic, distributional, or ecological trade-off]?
Required economic analysis
Your presentation and proposal should make these links visible:
- a stock-flow or hazard-exposure diagram;
- incentives faced by at least two decision-makers;
- the market failure or governance problem;
- a model, graph, or structured counterfactual;
- evidence that can distinguish among claims;
- at least two policy options, including the status quo;
- efficiency, distribution, implementation, and uncertainty; and
- one limitation that would change how cautiously a reader should interpret the result.
You may use benefit-cost analysis, dynamic allocation, scarcity rent, biological growth, valuation, property-rights analysis, expected-loss analysis, or another course framework suited to the question.
Evidence plan
Prefer a question that can be answered with evidence available at a scale you can manage. A useful evidence table contains:
| Claim | Measure needed | Source | Unit and time | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is changing? | Stock, condition, exposure, or loss | Agency or research source | Resource × place × year | Measurement |
| Why is it changing? | Price, rule, access, or behavior | Administrative or survey source | Decision-maker × period | Causal inference |
| Who gains or loses? | Cost, benefit, income, access, or risk | Multiple sources | Group × place | Missing distribution |
Official starting points appear in the resource topic atlas. A source being official does not make every comparison causal. State what the data can and cannot establish.
Deliverables
Kickoff report · October 30
Use the kickoff-report template and submit one page containing:
- team members and working title;
- one-sentence research question;
- stock, decision-makers, and institutional setting;
- two policy alternatives;
- one course model you expect to use;
- a short evidence table; and
- the largest feasibility risk.
Presentation · December 2–7
Prepare a 10-minute argument followed by questions. Build around one visual model, one evidence display, and one decision. Every team member must speak. End with the strongest objection to your recommendation and your response.
Proposal · December 15
Submit a polished proposal with these sections:
- Research question and motivation
- Resource system and institutional setting
- Economic framework
- Evidence and proposed method
- Policy alternatives and expected trade-offs
- Limitations, uncertainty, and distribution
- Work plan and references
Unless the instructor approves another format, aim for 8–10 double-spaced pages, excluding figures, tables, and references.
After the final presentation, each student submits the confidential peer-evaluation form.
Project score
| Component | Share of project score |
|---|---|
| Peer evaluation | 5% |
| Kickoff report | 10% |
| Presentation | 50% |
| Proposal | 35% |
Evaluation emphasizes the quality of the question, economic reasoning, appropriate use of evidence or modeling, oral communication, and constructive peer evaluation.
Approval checkpoint
Before investing heavily in data cleaning, send the instructor:
- the exact research question;
- one observation-level example or data dictionary;
- the geographic and time coverage;
- the intended outcome and comparison; and
- any access, licensing, or missing-data concern.
A precise question about one institution in one resource system is stronger than a tour of every problem connected to forests, fisheries, water, biodiversity, or disasters.