Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Economics Co-Laureate): "This book is simply a little gem. I have used it myself in my own graduate seminar. I have already written several colleagues with recommendations that they get the book immediately. So, I am not writing a rave book review and then not using the book myself. It is an amazing synthesis of earlier work as well as an excellent plan for future research in this challenging area of interest to environmental economists and policy analysts alike". Ecological Economics, 2007, vol. 62, pp. 759-760.
Richard Norgaard, University of California, Berkeley: "Marshall has re-grafted economics to the philosophical roots of collaborative environmental management, given stakeholders a pragmatic economics for "bottom-up" conflict resolution and eliminated the need for "top-down" economic experts. Beautifully reasoned and wonderfully practical!'
Allan Schmid, University Distinguished Professor, Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University: "If the potential of collaborative management is ever realized, it will owe a debt to this book. It provides a foundational economic theory of learning coming from complex adaptive systems thinking tested with field experience"
Stephen Dovers, Australian National University: "Economic thought and emerging collaborative environmental governance are important areas of thought and application, but are mostly found at great distance from each other and very often in conflict. Marshall not only clearly demonstrates why this is so, he goes on to detail an alternative pathway that can strengthen both of these fields in both their theory and practice. This is a most impressive feat, and this is a book thoroughly deserving a very wide readership"
Warren Musgrave, Emeritus Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of New England: "Marshall argues that mainstream economics, captive as it is of the prisoner's dilemma and the dangers of free-riding, is in a blind alley when it comes to contributing to constructive debate on governance of the commons. This is a significant book, which draws on the new institutional economics to indicate a productive way in which economists could contribute to thinking on common property natural resource management"
Andrew Beer, 2007, Geographical Research 45(1): 109-110: "The review of the economics of collaborative resource management is the real contribution of the book, as Marshall expertly draws together a literature that is often confusing and inaccessible ... Academic staff and postgraduate students will benefit greatly from reading this text, as many of the insights offered by Marshall into economic theory can be applied to research domains other than resource management. For example, his discussion of adaptation and New Institutional Economics has resonances with any area of government policy, including my own research interest in regional development agencies."
Alan Renwick, 2007, Journal of Agricultural Economics 58(2): 379-380: "The author is able to maintain a balance between promoting his vision and the real difficulties and obstacles faced in achieving this vision. This, I think, is a reflection of his practical experience and a strength of the book. ... The book is very useful and a must read for those involved at any level with the design and implementation of projects promoting collaborative work for environmental enhancement or protection."
Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 52(2): 214-215: "The author presents an excellent consolidation of pertinent economic theory and a methodology by which economic analysis can be applied to achieving the aspirations and goals of collaborative environmental management … This book will be a valuable reference for both policy makers and scholars looking to advance and empirically test economy theory in this complex, yet highly relevant area"
David Lewis Feldman, 2007, Human Ecology: "[This book] raises the level of discussion to another level, and thus constitutes significant contributions to the literature on collaborative management. .... [It] pushes the field beyond uncritical normative studies into more institutionally focused examinations of performance."
E.G. Smith, 2007, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 122: 494-495: "The concepts of collaborative environmental management [discussed in the book] could be applied in other fields, such as rural development where 'top-down' decision making has been the norm ... Managers can use this material to evaluate their way of managing and explore how the concepts of collaborative environmental management could benefit the organization."
Ingrid van Puten, 2006, Rural Society 16(1): 116-118: "Marshall's book is very accessible to non-economists and should be of great interest, particularly to those engaged in developing innovative but effective approaches to environmental management. But the book is equally important to practising economists who will be reminded how their thinking has been structured, resulting in the current management approaches, and, even more importantly, how these approaches can be extended to successfully include the collaborative vision underpinned by an evolving economic theory"
Mark Sproule-Jones, V. K. Copps Professor, McMaster University: "A valuable contribution to the burgeoning literature on voluntary collective action that demonstrates how processes can be designed to produce trust amongst stakeholders. Marshall anchors theory in the common property resource governance literature that has challenged orthodox economics for the last 25 years and offers the prospect of productive relationships between users, bureaucrats and funders"
Backcover text:
"Mainstream economics has a tight grip on public discourse, yet remains poorly equipped to comprehend the collaborative vision for managing environmental and resource commons. This ground-breaking book diagnoses the weaknesses of mainstream economics in analysing collaborative and other decentralized approaches to environmental management, and presents a unique operational approach to how collaborative environmental governance might be brought to fruition in a variety of contexts, whether in industrialized or developing countries. The result is a powerful, useful and badly needed approach to economics for collaborative environmental management of the commons."