Associate Professor and SER Chair
Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources
bryan.leonard@uwyo.edu | Beta House Room 310 | Website | CV | Google Scholar
Education
PhD Economics, UC Santa Barbara (2016)
MS Applied Economics Economics, Montana State University (2012)
BA Economics, Hillsdale College (2010)
Background and Expertise
Bryan Leonard is an associate professor and SER Chair at the University of Wyoming with a dual appointment in the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the School of Energy Resources. Professor Leonard's research explores the efficiency and equity implications of different institutional responses to resource allocation problems, focusing on land, water, and energy resources. He studies the historical context of policies that are crafted to solve resource challenges at a particular point in time and assess their long-run sustainability using an interdisciplinary approach that builds on his background in economics in collaboration with legal scholars, political theorists, and natural scientists. He is especially interested in the conditions under which property rights and markets perform better or worse than other institutions.
Much of professor Leonard's research can be parsed into three cross-cutting themes: i) tradeoffs between economic efficiency and other goals (such as equity) when designing policy; ii) the relationship between property rights and collective action problems; and iii) the modern challenges and historical foundations of public resource management in the American West. By studying the contemporary legacy of past policies, his research informs the design of institutions to solve pressing resource challenges today.
Selected Publications and Accomplishments
Parker, Dominic P., Sarah Johnston, Bryan Leonard, Daniel Stewart, and Justin B. Winikoff. "Economic potential of wind and solar in American Indian communities." Nature Energy (2024): 1-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01617-4
Allen, Douglas W., and Bryan Leonard. "Late Homesteading: Native Land Dispossession through Strategic Occupation." American Political Science Review (2024): 1-15. www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/late-homesteading-native-land-dispossession-through-strategic-occupation/7E9F48FE4E0960870DE63C4257A43432
Abbott, Joshua K., Bryan Leonard, and Brian Garber-Yonts. "The distributional outcomes of rights-based management in fisheries." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 2 (2022): e2109154119. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2109154119
Leonard, Bryan, Shawn Regan, Christopher Costello, Suzi Kerr, Dominic P. Parker, Andrew J. Plantinga, James Salzman, V. Kerry Smith, and Temple Stoellinger. "Allow “nonuse rights” to conserve natural resources." Science 373, no. 6558 (2021): 958-961. www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.abi4573
Leonard, Bryan, and Dominic P. Parker. "Fragmented ownership and natural resource use: Evidence from the Bakken." The Economic Journal 131, no. 635 (2021): 1215-1249. academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/131/635/1215/5903702
Leonard, Bryan, Dominic P. Parker, and Terry L. Anderson. "Land quality, land rights, and indigenous poverty." Journal of Development Economics 143 (2020): 102435. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387818315402