ABSTRACT
An economics capable of comprehending the collaborative vision for environmental management and analysing credibly the institutional choices arising in its pursuit has been presented above. This economics recognizes that the vision – one wherein collaboration between different stakeholders in making institutional choices leads them to cooperate with one another more voluntarily in implementing the chosen options than they would otherwise – can only be appreciated in social settings of any significant scale if the dynamics of the social-ecological systems faced with these choices are modelled as involving increasing returns (positive feedbacks) as well as diminishing returns (negative feedbacks). This is because the emergence and growth of voluntary cooperation within large groups occurs through the increasing returns involved in mutually reinforcing relationships between reciprocity, trust and voluntary cooperation.
