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Dr. Thomas C. Brown

tcbrown@fs.fed.us

(970) 498-2562 * Fax (970) 498-1212

Economist Research Interests Selected Projects Selected Publications Discussion Papers

Tom Brown is an economist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station's Social and Economic Values group. A member of the Station's research staff since 1974, he has focused on methodology for economic valuation of natural resources; and the environmental, economic, and institutional aspects of water resource management.

His recent work includes an assessment of past and projected future water use in the United States; and the book Instream Flow Protection: Seeking a Balance in Western Water Use, on the law, policy, history, and economics of water management in the Western United States.

Tom received his bachelor's degree in economics from American University, and his master's and Ph.D. in water management and economics from the University of Arizona.

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Research Interests

• Economic valuation of natural resources
  
• Environmental, economic, and institutional aspects of water resource management

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Selected Projects

Fire and Other Disturbances

• Incentives and Wildfire Suppression Policy

Recreation and Tourism

• Forest Scenic Beauty

Water

• 2010 RPA Water Assessment Updates
• 2010 RPA Water Assessment
• Water Markets
• Instream Flow Uses and Values
• Watershed Condition
• Water Use in the United States
• Contribution of Forests to the Nation's Water Supply
• Aquarius: A Water Allocation Model
• Water Quality on Forest Lands

Valuation Methodology and Application

• Reliability and Validity of Nonmarket Valuation Approaches
• Assessing Damage and the Importance of Losses
• The Method of Paired Comparisons

Ecosystem Services

• Marketing of Ecosystem Services

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Selected Publications

Placing a Publications Order

To view the following PDF files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free of charge from Adobe's website.

• Litschert, S. E.; Theobald, D. M.; Brown, T. C. 2014. Effects of climate change and wildfire on soil loss in the Southern Rockies Ecoregion. CATENA. 118: 206-219.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Romano Foti, and Jorge A. Ramirez. 2013. Projected freshwater withdrawals in the United States under a changing climate. Water Resources Research 49(3): 1259-1276.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C.; Froemke, Pamela. 2012. Nationwide assessment of nonpoint source threats to water quality. BioScience. 62(2): 136-146.
  
  
• Litschert, Sandra E.; Brown, Thomas C.; Theobald, David M. 2012. Historic and future extent of wildfires in the Southern Rockies Ecoregion, USA. Forest Ecology and Management. 269: 124-133.
  
  
• Kingsley, David C. and Thomas C. Brown. 2010. Preference Uncertainty, Preference Learning, and Paired Comparison Experiments. Land Economics. 86(3):530–544
  (1.1 MB PDF file)
  
  
• Morrison, Mark and Thomas C. Brown. 2009. Testing the Effectiveness of Certainty Scales, Cheap Talk, and Dissonance-Minimization in Reducing Hypothetical Bias in Contingent Valuation Studies. Environmental and Resource Economics. 44:307–326.
  (213 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. and George L. Peterson. 2009. An Enquiry into the Method of Paired Comparison: Reliability, Scaling, and Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment. RMRS-GTR-216WWW. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 98 p.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Michael T. Hobbins, and Jorge A. Ramirez. 2008. Spatial distribution of water supply in the coterminous United States. Journal of the American Water Resources Association. 44(6):1474-1487.
  (1.2 MB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., David Kingsley, George L. Peterson, Nick Flores, Andrea Clarke, and Andrej Birjulin. 2008. Reliability of individual valuations of public and private goods: response time, preference learning, and choice consistency. Journal of Public Economics 92(7):1595-1606.
  (982 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., John C. Bergstrom & John B. Loomis. 2007. Defining, valuing and providing ecosystem goods and services. Natural Resources Journal 47(2): 329-376.
  (3.9 MB PDF file)
  
  
• Donovon , Geoffrey H. and Thomas C. Brown. 2007. Be careful what you wish for: the legacy of Smokey Bear. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5(2):73-79.
  (478 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2006. Trends in water market activity and price in the western United States. Water Resources Research 42, W09402, doi:10.1029/2005WR004180.
  (672 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., George L. Peterson, R. Marc Brodersen, Valarie Ford, and Paul A. Bell. 2005. The judged seriousness of an environmental loss is a matter of what caused it. Journal of Environmental Psychology 25(1): 13-21.
  (1,205 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Ramirez, Jorge A., Michael T. Hobbins, and Thomas. C. Brown. 2005. Observational evidence of the complementary relationship in regional evaporation lends strong support for Bouchet’s hypothesis. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L15401.
  
  
• Hobbins, Michael. T., Jorge. A. Ramirez, and Thomas. C. Brown. 2004. Trends in pan evaporation and actual evapotranspiration across the conterminous U.S.: Paradoxical or complementary? Geophysical Research Letters 31(13), L13503.
  
  
• Ajzen, Icek, Thomas C. Brown, and Franklin Carvajal. 2004. Explaining the discrepancy between intentions and actions: The case of hypothetical bias in contingent valuation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(9): 1108-1121.
  
  
• Champ, Patricia A., Kevin Boyle, and Thomas C. Brown, editors. 2003. A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation. Kluwer Academic Press, Boston, 576 pages.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2003. Loss aversion without the endowment effect, and other explanations for the WTA-WTP disparity. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 57: 367-379.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Icek Ajzen, and Daniel Hrubes. 2003. Further Tests of Entreaties to Avoid Hypothetical Bias in Referendum Contingent Valuation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 46(2): 353-361.
  (115 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Champ, Patricia A., Nicholas E. Flores, Thomas C. Brown, and James Chivers. 2002. Contingent Valuation and Incentives. Land Economics 78(4): 591-604.
  (215 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Dawn Nannini, Robert Gorter, Paul Bell, and George L. Peterson. 2002. Judged Seriousness of Environmental Losses: Reliability and Cause of Loss. Ecological Economics 42(3): 479-491.
  (669 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Chuenpagdee, Ratana, Jack L. Knetsch, and Thomas C. Brown. 2001. Environmental Damage Schedules: Community Judgments of Importance and Assessments of Losses. Land Economics 77(1): 1-11.
  (576 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Ajzen, Icek, Lori H. Rosenthal, and Thomas C. Brown. 2000. Effects of Perceived Fairness on Willingness to Pay. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30(12): 2439-2450.
  (418 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2000. Projecting U.S. Freshwater Withdrawals. Water Resources Research 36(3): 769-780.
  (767 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2000. Economic Issues for Watersheds Supplying Drinking Water. Pages 42-51 in Drinking Water from Forests and Grasslands - A Synthesis of the Scientific Literature. George E. Dissmeyer, editor, General Technical Report SRS-39, Southern Research Station, US Forest Service, Asheville, NC. 246 pp.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., and Robin Gregory. 1999. Why the WTA--WTP Disparity Matters. Ecological Economics 28:323-335.
  (728 KB pdf file)
  
  
• Rutherford, Murray B., Jack L. Knetsch, and Thomas C. Brown. 1998. Assessing Environmental Losses: Judgments of Importance and Damage Schedules. Harvard Environmental Law Review 22(1):51-101.
  (1.8 MB pdf file)
  
  
• Peterson, George L., and Thomas C. Brown. 1998. Economic Valuation by the Method of Paired Comparison, with Emphasis on Tests of the Transitivity Axiom. Land Economics 74(2):240-261.
  (901 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Gillilan, David M., and Thomas C. Brown. 1997. Instream Flow Protection: Seeking a Balance in Western Water Use. Island Press, Washington, D.C., 417 pp.
  (Available in hardcover and paperback)
  
  
• Diaz, Gustavo E., and Thomas C. Brown. 1997. AQUARIUS: A Modeling System for River Basin Water Allocation. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-299, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, CO, 160 pp.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Patricia A. Champ, Richard C. Bishop, and Daniel W. McCollum. 1996. Which Response Format Reveals the Truth about Donations to a Public Good? Land Economics 72(2):152-166.
  (735 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Gregory, Robin, Thomas C. Brown, and Jack L. Knetsch. 1996. Valuing Risks to the Environment. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 545(May):54-63.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., George L. Peterson, and Bruce E. Tonn. 1995. The Values Jury to Aid Natural Resource Decisions. Land Economics 71(2):250-260.
  (856 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Ajzen, Icek, Thomas C. Brown, and Lori H. Rosenthal. 1995. Information Bias in Contingent Valuation: Effects of Personal Relevance, Quality of Information, and Motivational Orientation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 30:43-57.
  (596 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Gregory, Robin, Sara Lichtenstein, Thomas C. Brown, George Peterson, and Paul Slovic. 1995. How Precise Are Monetary Representations of Environmental Improvements? Land Economics 71(4):462-473.
  551 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. and Ernest S. Burch, Jr. 1992. Estimating the Economic Value of Subsistence Harvest of Wildlife in Alaska. Chapter 7 in Valuing Wildlife Resources in Alaska. Westview Press, Inc. 203-254.
  (2.3 MB PDF file)

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Discussion Papers

Discussion Papers report work in progress. They are written to share ideas, concepts, and theories as well as preliminary empirical data, and have not been peer reviewed or approved for publication. Comments are welcome.

• Brown, Thomas C., George L. Peterson, and Glen E. Brink. 2007. An Enquiry into the Method of Paired Comparison: Reliability, Scaling, and Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment.
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper.
  
  This Discussion Paper has been superceded by a 2009 General Technical Report (RMRS-GTR-216WWW) of the same name.
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Michael T. Hobbins, and Jorge A. Ramirez. 2005. The Source of Water Supply in the United States. RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper
  (1 MB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2004. The Marginal Economic Value of Streamflow From National Forests.
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper
  (1 MB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., George L. Peterson, R. Marc Brodersen, Valerie Ford, and Paul A. Bell. 2002. Is the Seriousness of an Environmental Loss a Matter of What Caused It?
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper
  (230 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Icek Aizen, and Dan Hrubes. 2002. Further Tests of Entreaties to Avoid Hypothetical Bias in Referendum Contingent Valuation.
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper
  (164 KB PDF file)
  Experimental Materials
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C. 2000. Experiment Participants Offer a Commonsense Explanation for the WTA-WTP Disparity.
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper
  (128 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Brown, Thomas C., Robin Gregory, and George L. Peterson. 1997. Rethinking the WTA-WTP Disparity.
  RMRS - RWU 4851 Discussion Paper

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