My first major strand of research is the neoclassical microeconomic theory of exhaustible resource industries. I use optimal control theory to investigate the behavior of competitive extractive firms under more complicated and realistic conditions than earlier work. The implications of this for such issues as "Green National Income" is another research area, and I have done some work in the economics of the fishery.
My other major strand of research investigates Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's ideas about the relationship between the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the "Entropy Law") and the economy. While I hold a BS degree in physics, I have come to believe that the everyday application of the Entropy Law by students of chemistry and of metallurgical thermodynamics has just as much to teach economists as do the sometimes more abstract concerns of physicists.
The courses I have taught at the University of Utah include Introduction to Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; Advanced Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis; Microeconomic Theory I; Quantitative Methods I; and, as part of a teaching team, Introduction to Environmental Studies. I have directed or am directing Ph.D. dissertations on: Russian oil auctions; framing's adverse effects on negotiation success in land use planning; the use of privately-grown fish to stock Utah waters; and squeezes in the spot and futures markets for Treasury notes.
T. Randolph Beard and Gabriel A. Lozada, "Economics, Entropy and the Environment: The Extraordinary Economics of Nicholas Georgescu- Roegen." 2000 forthcoming. Edward Elgar.
"Resource Depletion, National Income Accounting, and the Value of Optimal Dynamic Programs." Resource and Energy Economics, August 1995, pp. 137--154.
"The Conservationist's Dilemma." International Economic Review, August 1993, pp. 647--662.