Office Hours: Terry Anderson on Free Market Environmentalism

Published: March 7, 2018

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Terry Anderson responds to your questions on free market environmentalism.

1. 0:28 - How should we think about environmental policy and what role should markets play in protecting the environment?
2. 1:33 - Are the free market and the environment at odds with one another?
3. 2:32 - What is the tragedy of the commons and how do you prevent it in environmental policy?
4. 3:31 - What role does the government play in a free market system, especially in environmental policy?
5. 4:31 - What are a few examples where free market environmentalism has led to a better solution than government regulation?
6. 5:58 - Doesn't free market environmentalism mean selling the environment to private companies?

Watch the original video, "A Better Way to Preserve the Environment."

Terry Anderson was also the president of PERC (the Property and Environment Research Center), a think tank in Bozeman, Montana that focuses on market solutions to environmental problems. His research helped launch the idea of free market environmentalism and has prompted public debate over the proper role of government in managing natural resources.