The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), previously known as the Political Economy Research Center, is a
free-market environmentalist think tank
A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
based in
Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. Established in 1980,
PERC is dedicated to original research on market approaches to resolving environmental problems.
History
PERC began as an intellectual collaboration between economists
John Baden and
Richard L. Stroup. PERC started with a simple question: "If markets can produce bread and cars, why can't they produce environmental quality?"
In 1978, the two men established the Center for Political Economy and Natural Resources at
Montana State University
Montana State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It enrolls more students than any other college or university in the state. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's d ...
with the help of
Terry L. Anderson, P.J. Hill and Ronald Johnson. Later, they founded PERC as a free-standing research institution with the goal of showing that economic freedom can improve environmental quality.
While PERC later adopted the term "free market environmentalism," the original concept was called the New Resource Economics, which was discussed in an article by Terry Anderson in the ''American Journal of Agricultural Economics''. As Anderson indicated in his article in the AJAE, the New Resource Economics combined neoclassical economics, property rights, public choice, and Austrian economics.
Notable former board members, fellows and alumni include
Tim Sheehy
Timothy Patrick Sheehy (; born November 18, 1985) is an American politician, businessman, Aerial firefighting, aerial firefighter, and former United States Navy SEALs, Navy SEAL serving as the United States Senator, junior United States senator ...
,
Henry N. Butler,
Jonathan H. Adler,
Gary Libecap,
Bart Wilson,
Jane S. Shaw,
Bruce Yandle.
Outreach
PERC engages in research and advocacy related to free-market environmentalism and is active on issues including endangered species, water, pollution, and public lands.
[ PERC says that government policy is the root cause of much ]environmental degradation
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...
. ''The Dust Bowl Reconsidered'', for instance, blames the federal Homestead Act
The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of Federal lands, government land or the American frontier, public domain, typically called a Homestead (buildings), homestead. In all, mo ...
for accelerating erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...
problems by limiting claims of newly settled land to parcels. According to this article, fragmented land ownership reduced the incentives for implementing erosion countermeasures and made it difficult for farmers to negotiate contracts for voluntary soil conservation.
References
External links
*
*
PERC on Ballotpedia
{{Authority control
Environmental organizations based in Montana
Political and economic think tanks in the United States
1982 establishments in Montana
Non-profit organizations based in Montana