Dominic (Nick) Parker is a professor of applied economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he serves editorial roles at three leading journals in environmental and resource economics. He holds a PhD in economics from UC-Santa Barbara where he was a National Science Foundation fellow in economics & environmental science.
Parker’s research appears in economics, science, and law journals and spans topics in environmental, resource, and development economics. It includes studies of environmental markets, resource booms and busts, land use, fishery and wildlife regulations, and renewable energy. His research on the unintended effects of US financial regulation on African mining communities, and of wolves on deer-vehicle collisions in the US, has received widespread attention from over 100 media outlets including BBC News, Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, the Atlantic, and The Economist. The mining research provided input for a US Senate Foreign Relations committee and for an OECD advisory panel on global supply chain issues.
Parker also studies the economies of Indigenous communities, and how government policies affect their development. This research was the theme of his sabbatical at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in New Zealand, and it integrates his interests in the nexus of natural resource use, economic development, and property rights and governance.
Parker holds academic affiliations complementary to his activities at UW-Madison. He is the Ilene and Morton Harris Senior Fellow (adjunct) at Stanford’s Hoover Institution where he helps directs projects on Renewing Indigenous Economies and Markets vs. Mandates for the Environment. Parker is a regular lecturer on research methodology for the Ronald Coase Institute, and for Elinor Ostrom Workshop programs for young scholars. He is a senior fellow at the Property Environment Research Center where he directs the summer fellowship and seminar program for scholars.