Gary Libecap

Gary Don Libecap is an American economist who is currently an emeritus professor in the Department of Economics and the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Libecap's specialty is environmental economics, and his 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. He has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers, lectured widely, and written articles that have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Born in 1946, Libecap received a BA in economics from the University of Montana in 1968, and a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976; he also served in the U.S. Air Force from 1969 to 1973. He held positions at the University of New Mexico, Texas A&M University, and the University of Arizona, before joining the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was eventually made a Distinguished Professor, and later a professor emeritus.
Libecap is a research associate at the NBER, and was a fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2005 to 2020. He is also a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. He served as President of the Western Economic Association International in 2005;President of the Economic History Association in 2006; and President of the International Society for the New Institutional Economics—Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics, 2005. Between 2010 and 2011, he served as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge and 2019 Erskine Professor, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organisation, and formerly was editor of the Journal of Economic History and on the editorial board of Explorations in Economic History.

Appointed Positions

Member, Global Think Tank on Wild Ocean Fisheries Management, World Wildlife Fund, 2015–2017.
Advisory Committee: Ostrom Workshop, Indiana University, 2015–2017.
Advisory Group: Water in the West, Stanford Woods Institute and Bill Lane Center, Stanford University, 2015–2017.
Fellow, the Economics and Science Group, Australian National University, 2015–2017.
Advisor Committee, UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, IGCC, 2013–16
Member, Scientific Committee, International Center for Economic Research, Turin Italy, 2007–2014
Member, Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education, National Science Foundation, 2005–08
Member of various NSF research review panels.
Board of Advisors, Ronald Coase Institute, 2000-

Books

. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
. University of Chicago Press and NBER, 1994.
. University of Chicago Press and NBER, 1994.
. University of Michigan Press, 1999.
. Kluwer Academic, 2000.
. Stanford University Press, 2007.
. University of Chicago Press and NBER. May, 2011.
. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
. Washington DC: Island Press.
ed. Ariel Dinar, American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press and NBER, 2023.
Where's Coase? The Implications of Economic Property Rights or Rent-Seeking in Forming Institutions. Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming 2025

Selected publications

, American Economic Review, December, 1982.
, American Economic Review, March, 1984.
, American Economic Review, June, 1985.
, Journal of Political Economy, August, 1985.
, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, March, 1989.]
, Public Choice, January, 1991.]
"Patronage to Merit and Control of the Federal Government Labor Force", Explorations in Economic History, January, 1994.
, Arizona Law Review, Fall, 1995.]
, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, April, 1996.
“Common Property,” in Peter Newman, ed., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, 1998.
“Unitization,” in Peter Newman, ed., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law 1998.
, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, July, 1999.
, Economic Inquiry, lead article, April, 2003.
, Journal of Political Economy, June, 2004.
, Journal of Economic History. June, 2007.]
, Economic Inquiry, April, 2008.]
, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, October, 2009.
, Arizona Law Review, 2008.
, Annual Review of Resource Economics, October, 2011.
, American Economic Review, February, 2011.
, Journal of Political Economy, June, 2011.
, Journal of Law and Economics, November, 2011.
, Journal of Economic Literature, June, 2014.
with Eric Edwards and Martin Fiszbein, “Property Rights to Land and Agricultural Organization: A United States and Argentina Comparison”. “Journal of Law and Economics” 65, February 2022.
“Where’s Coase? Transaction Costs Reduction or Rent-Seeking in the Formation of Institutions.” International Review of Law and Economics, Special Issue in Honor of Oliver Williamson. 2025.