Three essays in resource economics: Protecting non-use values through ecosystem management and estimating recreational demand to determine use values.

摘要

This dissertation consists of three essays that illustrate how the different ecological and economic tradeoffs accounted for in decision making affect estimates of value, with the ultimate goal of promoting more efficient ecosystem management. The first essay develops a bioeconomic model of managing excessive predation. A wildlife manager can reduce predation by removing the predator or by investing in exclosures to limit predator-prey interaction. Predator-prey dynamics are analogous to commercial exploitation of a renewable resource and predator removal and exclosures are analogous to entry fees and harvest quotas, respectively. Thus, the ecological model has relevance to more common human recreational hunting or commercial harvesting management problems. I find that using predator exclosures can yield a win-win outcome that increases both prey and predator populations. The model is parameterized and applied to the case of the Great Lakes Piping Plover, an endangered shorebird. I find that the solution to the Piping Plover problem is sensitive to the choice of economic values.;The second essay compares habitat creation and predator removal in conservation of the endangered Gaspesie Woodland Caribou. The caribou have suffered from habitat loss historically, but predation is currently a major limiting factor. In fact, land converted from caribou habitat to human use appears to favor increased predator survival. Using a bioeconomic model, I find that while increasing caribou habitat increases caribou survival and reduces caribou predation, a priori using caribou habitat as the only wildlife control is not first-best. The optimal management strategy involves a combination of predator removal and caribou habitat protection.;The third essay presents a model of the demand for Great Lakes fishing among Michigan recreational anglers. To control for travel cost endogeneity, two techniques are tested: alternative-specific constants and a control function. Both methods identify no evidence of travel cost endogeneity. Overall, model estimates predict that walleye, followed by chinook salmon, are the most valuable Great Lakes fish to Michigan anglers.