The Efficiency Gains from Fully Delineating Rights in an ITQ Fishery

Individual transferable quota (ITQ) regulation relies on a decentralized market mechanism and a single price to allocate access to a stock of fish. The resulting allocation will not be fully efficient if the stock being allocated is heterogeneous or if there are potential gains from centralized coordination of harvesting effort. If stocks are heterogeneous in their density, location, or unit value during the season, harvesters governed by an ITQ policy will not be indifferent to when or where they exercise their quotas. Stocks that are relatively dense and/or close to port will be preferred to those less dense or more remote. Because an ITQ policy assigns the same opportunity cost for each unit harvested, individual harvesters have an incentive to compete for higher-valued units, and such competition may dissipate part of the fishery’s potential rent. A similar phenomenon arises when stock densities vary in an unknown way over space or time, so harvesters must engage in costly search. Individual harvesters governed by an ITQ policy still face a collective action problem which limits the incentive to share information on stock locations. This can lead to redundant search effort. We demonstrate that both sources of inefficiency can be eliminated either by defining ITQ rights more precisely or by an agreement among harvesters to coordinate their effort. We develop models that illustrate these effects and identify the factors that determine their likely size. Anecdotal evidence on practices adopted by fishery cooperatives is presented to illustrate the practical relevance of the issues we raise.ITQ fishery, cooperative, search, game theory, property rights, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Q22, D23, K11,

Search, bioprospecting, and biodiversity conservation

To what extent can private-sector bioprospecting incentives be relied upon for the protection of biological diversity? The literature contains dramatically different estimates of these incentives from trivial to quite large. We resolve this controversy by isolating the fundamental source of the discrepancy and then providing empirically defensible estimates based on that analysis. Results demonstrate that the bioprospecting incentive is unlikely to generate much private-sector conservation. Thus, other mechanisms are likely required to preserve the public good of biodiversity.Bioprospecting, biodiversity, conservation, efficient search, information

On the Brink of Reform? Restructuring the UN Security Council

The United Nations is based on the principle of collective security-- nations banding together to protect each other from aggression, both from within the group of nations and from the outside. However, the standard operating procedures of collective security, as embodied by the UN, is unable to meet the changing needs of the international community. This is due in part to the shift in the global power structure and the Security Council\u27s lack of accurate geo-political representation. If the UN expects to continue its efforts to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council\u27s composition must change. In the 1990s there has been talk of adding new permanent members to the Council, with Japan and Germany topping the list of candidates for a permanent seat. This paper delves into what effects the grant of permanent membership would have on Japan, and what obstacles there are to Japan\u27s inclusion as a permanent member

Multi-Reference Frame Image Registration for Rotation, Translation, and Scale

This thesis investigates applications of multi-reference frame image registration for image sets with various translation, rotation, and scale combinations. It focuses on registration accuracy improvement over traditional pairwise registration, and also compares the quality of scene estimation from frame averaging. Three experiments are developed which use cross-correlation to estimate translation, the Radon transform to estimate translation and rotation, and the Fourier-Mellin transform to estimate translation, rotation, and scale. Results from applying multi-reference frame registration in these experiments show distinct improvements in both registration accuracy and quality of frame averaging compared to single-reference frame registration. Furthermore, it is shown that the new registration technique is equivalent to the optimal Gauss-Markov estimator of the relative shifts given all pairwise shifts

Poverty and Employment in Timber-Dependent Counties

One of the most controversial aspects of federal and state policies aimed at protecting old-growth ecosystems has been the potential impact of job losses on local economies. A fundamental question for historically timber-dependent communities is whether these policies will result in local economic stagnation and enduring pockets of poverty. In this paper, we examine the long-run impact of changes in timber-related employment on other types of employment and participation in major federal poverty programs. We use monthly, multi-county time series data to estimate a vector autoregressive model of the experience of northern California counties during the 1980s and 1990s. We find that employment base multiplier effects of timber employment on other types of employment in each county are small, and state economic conditions rather than local employment conditions are the principal driver behind local poverty.

The Economic Value of Rebuilding Fisheries

The global demand for protein from seafood –- whether wild, caught or cultured, whether for direct consumption or as feed for livestock –- is high and projected to continue growing. However, the ocean's ability to meet this demand is uncertain due to either mismanagement or, in some cases, lack of management of marine fish stocks. Efforts to rebuild and recover the world's fisheries will benefit from an improved understanding of the long-term economic benefits of recovering collapsed stocks, the trajectory and duration of different rebuilding approaches, variation in the value and timing of recovery for fisheries with different economic, biological, and regulatory characteristics, including identifying which fisheries are likely to benefit most from recovery, and the benefits of avoiding collapse in the first place. These questions are addressed in this paper using a dynamic bioeconomic optimisation model that explicitly accounts for economics, management, and ecology of size-structured exploited fish populations. Within this model framework, different management options (effort controls on small-, medium-, and large-sized fish) including management that optimises economic returns over a specified planning horizon are simulated and the consequences compared. The results show considerable economic gains from rebuilding fisheries, with magnitudes varying across fisheries

Exploring the Association Between Epistemic Emotions and Engagement in Early Engineering Design Tasks

Research has shown that students who are interested in engineering design tasks early in their lives are more likely to become engineers. Importantly, kids tend to be more engaged with activities that elicit positive emotions (Hammond, 2014). Our purpose is to try fostering higher levels of engagement in engineering design tasks by observing how each step is associated with positive or negative epistemic emotions. We observed video recordings of six families engaged in different engineering tasks in their home environments. The videos were coded to categorize a range of different emotions throughout the activity. We hypothesize that activities involving physical engagement will be associated with positive emotions, while parts involving reading or planning will be associated with negative emotions. This research could help improve future engineering design tasks, by decreasing negative emotions and thus, increasing engagement. Designing activities to be more engaging helps attract more students to STEM.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2024/1070/thumbnail.jp

The Value of Secure Property Rights: Evidence from Global Fisheries

Property rights are commonly touted as a solution to common pool resource problems. But in practice the security of these property rights varies substantially owing to differences in design. In fisheries, the design of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) varies widely; the consequences of these design differences on economic outcomes has not been studied. To test whether the security of these property rights affects asset values, we compile a unique dataset to examine the relationship between the exclusivity of property rights and the dividend price ratios for ITQs. We find evidence that stronger property rights lead to higher asset values and lower dividend price ratios in ITQ fisheries. This pecuniary effect of property rights security informs the current policy debate on the design of property rights institutions for managing natural resources.