The Endangered Species Act is a strong environmental law that gives federal agencies authority to conserve imperiled species by regulating private and public parties. In this dissertation, I use data on timber harvests near endangered woodpeckers in North Carolina to estimate that landowners are 25% more likely to harvest mature pine trees if there are woodpeckers nearby. A safe-harbor program appears to have a modest effect on slowing the destruction of habitat. I next use a computer-based experiment to confirm that the safe-harbor program is an improvement for both landowners and endangered species over the status quo of strict regulation. A policy with strong financial incentives is most effective at encouraging landowner cooperation, but weak financial incentives are surprisingly ineffective. Finally, I explore the role of cost-benefit analysis of critical habitat designation under the Endangered Species Act. The current agency methodology leads to estimates of low costs and zero benefits of critical habitat. I argue that agencies should use a broader concept of costs and benefits because it is a better reading of the Act and can lead to more effective regulations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03232015-105035 |
| Date | 08 April 2015 |
| Creators | Byl, Jacob Peter |
| Contributors | J.B. Ruhl, W. Kip Viscusi, Cindy D. Kam, Kathryn Anderson |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03232015-105035/ |
| Rights | restrictone, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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