In the case of lake management for recreational use, policy makers often face a balancing act. They must maintain both the ecological quality of sites and the welfare of recreationists. In Wisconsin's Northern Highland Lake District, recreational boaters inadvertently transport aquatic invasive species between lakes. Economic models of boater demand...
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) are the most socially polarizing species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Wildlife management practices at local, state, and federal levels include lethal control to resolve stakeholder and wolf conflicts as a last resort. There is little experimental evidence that lethal control is effective in this...
The Endangered Species Act is hailed as the “gold standard” of species conservation legislation both in the U.S. and globally. There are scarce conservation funds that we as a society can spend on the recovery of endangered species, so it is important to understand how the parties involved with this...
In explaining why service prices differ across countries
(both developed and developing countries), most studies have
paid attention to the role of structural variables such as
population, trade balance, resource abundance etc., by using
a full employment assumption. Due to the existence of high
urban unemployment in developing countries, the...
The performance of the meat products industry, the largest food processing sector in the U.S. in terms of shipment value, is an important issue. A key indicator of its performance is productivity growth, which results in reduction in the cost of production at given input prices. The present study employs...
Despite several decades of research developments, the survey-based contingent
valuation (CV) method remains one of the most controversial topics in environmental
economics. As the procedure matures and more applied studies are completed, there
is increasing pressure to make the results policy relevant. This research is composed
of three distinct yet...
Private land-use decisions can have important effects on private and public welfare. Market-based policies to regulate land use have the potential to move the privately-optimal allocation of land closer to what is socially optimal. To implement these policies in the Rocky Mountain states, it is necessary to understand the effects...
This dissertation consists of two essays that address code-sharing alliances in the U.S. domestic airline industry.
The first essay examines the economic impact of code-sharing using data from the complementary code-sharing agreement between Southwest and ATA Airlines. This code-share agreement is found to decrease air fares and increase passenger volumes...
This dissertation consists of three papers on the use of incentives for conservation of endangered species on private land. The first paper examines incentives based on providing landowners with assurances regarding future regulation in exchange for their participation in a conservation agreement. The second and third papers are empirical analyses...
Advancing the understanding of natural resource management is an important step in mitigating the effects of human activity on the environment, and ensuring efficient outcomes for many sectors of the economy. As humanity’s role in the natural world becomes better understood, the importance of interdisciplinary modeling has grown in leaps...