Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Can Spatial Dependence Enhance Industry Sustainability? The Case Of Pasture-Based Beef, Inocencio Rodriguez, Gerard D'Souza, Thomas Griggs

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Can sustainability be enhanced by maximizing the sum of private and social benefits from an industry? This might take place, for example, by identifying production options that increase profitability side-by-side with societal goals such as renewable energy production and carbon sequestration, healthier communities, environmental quality, and economic development. We explore this issue for pasture based beef (PBB), a nascent industry where industry profitability, community development, and quality of life can be enhanced by explicitly linking the PBB supply chain spatially and intertemporally, thereby increasing the sum of private and social benefits. We develop a framework based on optimal control theory …