Efficiency of Public Goods Provision in Space

This article incorporates a political decision process into an urban land use model to predict the likely location of a public good. It fills an important gap in the literature by modeling the endogenous location of open space. The article compares open space decisions made under a majority-rules voting scheme with welfare-improving criterion and finds households tied to a location in space compete against each other for public goods located nearer them. Significant differences emerge between the two decision criteria, indicating that requiring referenda for open space decisions is likely to lead to inefficient outcomes. Specifically, many open space votes are likely to fail that would lead to welfare improvements, and any open space decisions that do pass will require amenities larger than needed to achieve the social optimum. The more dispersed and large the population, the larger is the gap between the socially efficient level and the level needed for a public referendum to pass.organizational slack, antecedents, dispositional requirements, resources

Did local government structure kill small town America?

This article examines the provision of public goods in an urban area and the effect voting has on the level and location of amenities throughout a city. It is particularly appropriate for small communities that must finance economic development projects with limited funds. The work presented is a result of working with rural communities throughout America that have seen their historic downtowns deteriorate as big box retail grows on the urban fringe. I find this shift in community development may be a result of the way local economic development is financed and projects are decided upon. Specifically, I find significant welfare losses associated with voting for a public good in space. Small public projects that would lead to community-wide welfare improvements are always under-provided, amenities from any public good provided exceed the social optimum, and amenities throughout the city are inappropriately located. Urban amenities refer to city parks, libraries, recreation and cultural centers, museums, landscaping, and other goods that are publicly provided for the enjoyment of residents. Parks and recreation centers serve as extended backyards, community gathering places, and wildlife habitat. Cultural centers and landscaping enhance local neighborhoods and are used as a gauge of a community's quality of life. Often these amenities are created by public referendum or by public servants acting on behalf of the community, presumably as if there was a referendum, and, once created, are financed through property taxes spread evenly across the community. The benefits of urban amenities, however, do not accrue evenly across a community. They create a spatial externality in the sense that residents living nearer the public good benefit more than a resident living across town. This introduces two opposing forces in the decision of public good location. There is pressure for amenities to be created where access is highest and spillovers are largest; however, such land is typically more expensive, leading to a higher tax burden.open space, spatial economics, referendum, voting, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, Political Economy, R10, R14,

Exports and Externalities: the other side of trade and ecological risk and Technology Diffusion in a Competitive World

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to measure welfare effects of taxes for correcting environmental externalities caused by domestic trade, focusing on exter- nalities that arise through exports. Externalities from exports come from a number of sources. Domestically owned ships, planes, and automobiles can become contaminated while visiting other regions and bring unwanted pests home, and species can be in- troduced by contaminated visitors that enter a region to consume goods and services. The paper combines insights from the public finance literature on corrective environ- mental taxes and trade literature on domestically provided services. We find that past methods for measuring welfare effects are inadequate for a wide range of externalities and show the most widely used corrective mechanism, taxes on the sector imposing the environmental externality, may often do more harm than good. The motivation for this paper is the expansion of invasive species' ranges within the United States. We apply our analytical model to the specifc example of quagga and zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha and Dreissena rostiformis bugenis) invasion into the U.S Pacific Northwest.environmental regulation, tax interactions, invasive species, environment and trade

Stepping stones for biological invasion: A bioeconomic model of transferable risk

Herein we model the widespread dispersal and management of an invasive species as a weak-link public good. The risk of introduction is driven in part by economic activity, is influenced by policies directed at the risk, and economic activity responds/adapts to the risk. Framed around recent introductions and rapid spread of dreissenid mussels in the Western United States, we find three key results. First, partial equilibrium estimates of welfare loss are significantly overestimated relative to general equilibrium estimates. If ecosystem services and market goods are substitutes the partial equilibrium bias is greater than if they are compliments. Second, well-intended policies do not necessarily reduce overall risk; risk reduction actions can transfer risk to another time or location, or both, which may increase total risk. Third, policies of quotas and inspections have to be extreme to improve welfare, with inspections having advantages over quotas.bioeconomic, invasive species, risk, weak-link, welfare, Environmental Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q2, Q26, Q57,

Cost Shared Wildfire Risk Mitigation in Log Hill Mesa, Colorado: Survey Evidence on Participation and Willingness to Pay

Wildland–urban interface (WUI) homeowners who do not mitigate the wildfire risk on their properties impose a negative externality on society. To reduce the social costs of wildfire and incentivise homeowners to take action, cost sharing programs seek to reduce the barriers that impede wildfire risk mitigation. Using survey data from a WUI community in western Colorado and a two-stage decision framework, we examine residents’ willingness to participate in a cost sharing program for removing vegetation on their properties and the amount they are willing to contribute to the cost of that removal. Wefind that different factors motivate decisions about participation and about how much to pay. Willingness to participate correlates with both financial and non-monetary considerations, including informational barriers and wildfire risk perceptions, but not with concerns about effectiveness or visual impacts. Residents of properties with higher wildfire risk levels are less likely to participate in the cost sharing than those with lower levels of wildfire risk. We find widespread, positive willingness to pay for vegetation removal, with the amount associated negatively with property size and positively with respondent income. These results can inform the development of cost sharing programs to encourage wildfire risk mitigation on private property

A Coupled Bioeconomic Model of a Regional Economy and an Aquatic Food Web

Feedbacks between the ecosystem and the economy are important to consider when measuring impacts from a disturbance but are often missed in representations of the economy and the food web. Moreover, regional general equilibrium models often focus on how humans respond to ecological changes and do not consider that in adapting to changed conditions, humans can further affect the ecosystem. We present a coupled bioeconomic model that integrates the economic and ecological systems into a single model; a computable general equilibrium model of a regional economy is linked with an aquatic food web model. The food web is modeled using the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) platform, and multidirectional feedbacks between the ecological and economic systems are included. Our bioeconomic model uniquely represents of both recreational and commercial fishing activities, harvest quotas, and fish biomass values in the economic system. We simulated the bioeconomic impacts of a potential Asian carp invasion of Lake Erie’s food web and regional economy. Without including bioeconomic feedbacks, our results suggest that Asian carp could have large ecological impacts, but small economic impacts. However, even if the regional welfare impacts from an invasion are small, projected population levels are overestimated for some species and underestimated for other species when the human feedback is omitted

Sectoral Impacts of Invasive Species in the United States and Approaches to Management

Invasive species have a major effect on many sectors of the U.S. economy and on the well-being of its citizens. Their presence impacts animal and human health, military readiness, urban vegetation and infrastructure, water, energy and transportations systems, and indigenous peoples in the United States (Table 9.1). They alter bio-physical systems and cultural practices and require significant public and private expenditure for control. This chapter provides examples of the impacts to human systems and explains mechanisms of invasive species’ establishment and spread within sectors of the U.S. economy. The chapter is not intended to be comprehensive but rather to provide insight into the range and severity of impacts. Examples provide context for ongoing Federal programs and initiatives and support State and private efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species and eradicate and control established invasive species

Did local government structure kill small town America?

This article examines the provision of public goods in an urban area and the effect voting has on the level and location of amenities throughout a city. It is particularly appropriate for small communities that must finance economic development projects with limited funds. The work presented is a result of working with rural communities throughout America that have seen their historic downtowns deteriorate as big box retail grows on the urban fringe. I find this shift in community development may be a result of the way local economic development is financed and projects are decided upon. Specifically, I find significant welfare losses associated with voting for a public good in space. Small public projects that would lead to community-wide welfare improvements are always under-provided, amenities from any public good provided exceed the social optimum, and amenities throughout the city are inappropriately located. Urban amenities refer to city parks, libraries, recreation and cultural centers, museums, landscaping, and other goods that are publicly provided for the enjoyment of residents. Parks and recreation centers serve as extended backyards, community gathering places, and wildlife habitat. Cultural centers and landscaping enhance local neighborhoods and are used as a gauge of a community's quality of life. Often these amenities are created by public referendum or by public servants acting on behalf of the community, presumably as if there was a referendum, and, once created, are financed through property taxes spread evenly across the community. The benefits of urban amenities, however, do not accrue evenly across a community. They create a spatial externality in the sense that residents living nearer the public good benefit more than a resident living across town. This introduces two opposing forces in the decision of public good location. There is pressure for amenities to be created where access is highest and spillovers are largest; however, such land is typically more expensive, leading to a higher tax burden