The Noah's Ark Problem
构建了一个成本效益公式，用于对濒危物种保护项目进行排序，帮助在有限预算下确定保护优先级，适合关注生物多样性经济学的读者。
This paper is about the economic theory of biodiversity preservation. A cost-effectiveness methodology is constructed, which results in a particular formula that can be used as a criterion to rank projects. The ranking criterion is sufficiently operational to be useful in suggesting what to look at when determining actual conservation priorities among endangered species. At the same time, the formula is firmly rooted in a mathematically rigorous optimization framework, so that its theoretical underpinnings are clear. The underlying model, called the Noah's Ark Problem, is intended to be a kind of canonical form that hones down to its analytical essence the problem of best preserving diversity under a limited budget constraint.