Gary Libecap

Gary D. Libecap is a Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara. Libecap is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research; a research fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center, and a member of the Research Group on Political Institutions and Economic Policy, Harvard University. He was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University 2010-11, and was previously the Anheuser Busch Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, Economics, and Law at the University of Arizona.

Gary Libecap’s research focuses on the role of property rights institutions in addressing the open access losses for natural resources such as fisheries and freshwater, as well as the role of water markets in encouraging efficient use and allocation. Libecap has authored or coauthored over 200 scholarly papers in peer-reviewed journals, has lectured widely, and written articles that have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.