Renewable Natural Resources, Regime Shift and Hysteresis (opens in new tab)

Many of the world's renewable resources are in decline. Optimal harvests with smooth recruitment is well studied but in recent years, ecologists have concluded that tipping points in recruitment are common. Recruitment with a tipping point has low-fecundity below the tipping point and high-fecundity above. When the discounted value of high-fecundity is sufficiently high, there is a high-fecundity steady-state. This steady-state is stable but...