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Photo of Dr. Daniel Rondeau

Professor

Economics

Status:
On leave
Contact:
Office: BEC 342 250-472-4423
Credentials:
PhD (Cornell)
Area of expertise:
Environmental and Resource Economics, Microeconomics, Experiential Methods

Bio

A micro-economist and experimentalist, Dr. Rondeau specializes in the study of Environmental and Resource Management issues and in the Application of Experimental Methods to a broad array of issues, including Mechanism Design for Environmental Valuation, the Private Provision of Public Goods and the Auctioning and Trading of Quotas and of Timber Rights.

Interests

  • Environmental & Natural Resource Economics
  • Experimental Economics

Research Projects

Dr. Rondeau’s most recent research includes an early study of the impact of COVID-19 on biodiversity and a study of the value of wetlands in Quebec.

His research projects apply experimental methods and mechanism design to contemporary environmental issues. In a project sponsored by the Quebec Federation of Egg Producers, Dr. Rondeau and Dr. Maurice Doyon from Laval University have devised a new auction mechanism for the trading of production quota among producers.

Dr. Rondeau created a new market allocation mechanism designed to provide efficient trading, but also to steer the uniform auction price to the lower end of the theoretically predicted range and limit the market power of sellers in these thin markets.

Experimental testing of the auction demonstrated the ability of the proposed auction to meet the goals and objectives of egg producers and has led to its implementation in the field.

Further work on this auction mechanism is underway as a different association of agricultural producers is now moving towards its implementation as well.

In another recently completed project, Dr. Rondeau and colleagues conducted field experiments to estimate the aesthetic and non-use benefits of tree plantations on private agricultural land. In this project, Dr. Rondeau was responsible for the development of a theoretical framework guiding the development of discrete choice valuation experiments with real implementations.

The project aimed in part to demonstrate how experimental methods can be used to advance research and policy development in agriculture, and provide a greater understanding of the validity of non-market valuation methods. The results of this research will be an integral part of the ecological-economic model to be built as part of the proposed research project.

Dr. Rondeau has led or collaborated on several projects where experimental methods are applied to test the validity of non-market valuation methods. This work has covered the influence of altruism and other forms of other-regarding preferences on valuation results; mechanism design for testing the validity of the contingent valuation method; and a series of research experiments in the lab and in the field, testing various approaches to enhance private contributions towards the funding of public goods.

In the most recent of these projects, Dr. Rondeau designed a novel payment mechanism for a study of the costs of conservation rules on residents of rural Uganda. The mechanism led to a significant reduction in the number of protest bids and outliers.

Dr. Rondeau also conducted several studies on the economics of human-wildlife conflicts on agricultural land and in suburban areas. He has studied the economics of conflicts with deer, wolf, elephants and wildebeest, investigating alternative management strategies both theoretically and numerically in order to recommend optimal action plans.

Courses

  • ECON 203, Intermediate Microeconomics I
  • ECON 351, Mathematical Economics II: An Introduction to Dynamic Methods
  • ECON 382, Natural Resource Economics I
  • ECON 400, Advanced Microeconomic Theory
  • ECON 450, Game Theory in Economics
  • ECON 530, Economics of Natural Resources
  • ECON 550, Game Theory in Economics

Selected Publications

 (for complete list, check Dr. Rondeau's website):