SPATIAL VARIATION IN RISK PREFERENCES AMONG ATLANTIC AND GULF OF MEXICO PELAGIC LONGLINE FISHERMEN

This paper shows the effects of spatially aggregating data in an analysis of fishing site choice among Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico longline fishers. Parameter estimates of expected utility, measures of risk, and estimates of welfare losses from area closures are presented. The estimated parameters and the measures of risk aversion indicate some spatial variation. However, the welfare measures from the area closure vary widely between a spatially aggregated model and a disaggregated model. The reason appears to arise from the economic behavior of fishers in New Jersey, where the expected utility model performs poorly.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Pupil mobility, attainment and progress in secondary school

This paper is the second of two articles arising from a study of the association between pupil mobility and attainment in national tests and examinations in an inner London borough. The first article (Strand & Demie, 2006) examined the association of pupil mobility with attainment and progress during primary school. It concluded that pupil mobility had little impact on performance in national tests at age 11, once pupils’ prior attainment at age 7 and other pupil background factors such as age, sex, special educational needs, stage of fluency in English and socio-economic disadvantage were taken into account. The present article reports the results for secondary schools (age 11-16). The results indicate that pupil mobility continues to have a significant negative association with performance in public examinations at age 16, even after including statistical controls for prior attainment at age 11 and other pupil background factors. Possible reasons for the contrasting results across school phases are explored. The implications for policy and further research are discussed

A Random Utility Model for Sportfishing: Some Preliminary Results for Florida

The gray literature in the field of nonmarket benefit measurement has made extensive use of the random utility (or discrete choice) model in recent years, but few applications appear in the literature. This article provides such an application, illustrating the technique with preliminary results from a regional study modeling east cost sportfishing behavior. The article discusses some of the strengths and weaknesses of the random utility model. It also illustrates how data regularly collected by the National Marine Fisheries Service can be supplemented with economic survey data to estimate these discrete choice behavioral models.Random utility, discrete choice, sportfishing, nonmarket benefits, environmental quality, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Estimating Parameters of a Renewable Resource Model Without Population Data

A general approach to determining parameters of a traditional bioeconomic model is offered for the situation in which knowledge of resource abundance is unknown. Production parameters (such as catchability coefficients) and biological factors (such as natural mortality and recruitment) are included in the model. The general model is articulated for a typical fishery and further specified to obtain estimates of parameters for the St. John's River shad fishery. The results, considering the illustrative nature of the analysis, are promising and suggest avenues of additional research.Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Measuring the Benefits of Improvements in Water Quality: The Chesapeake Bay

Federal, state, and local government agencies have joined forces in the ambitious and expensive task of improving the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay. Clean-up efforts will be devoted to three major problems: nutrient over enrichment, toxic substances, and the decline of submerged aquatic vegetation. Although the beneficiaries are ultimately human, criteria for judging the Bay's water quality have been primarily biological and physical. This paper addresses the question of the human values from the Bay. How do people use the Bay and how much are they willing to pay for the changes in water quality that improve their use? With a variety of methods and data sources, we estimate the annual aggregate willingness to pay for a moderate improvement in the Chesapeake Bay's water quality to be in the range of $10 to$100 million in 1984 dollars.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Pulsed Generic Advertising: The Case of Common Property

Regulation of fisheries production together with public promotion of fisheries products offer a potentially profitable environment for fishermen. Yet production restrictions are usually insufficient to prevent entry, causing depletion of the resource base and dissipation of long-run profits from promotion. Shorter run gains may be possible, providing producer response to advertising is not instantaneous. Lagged biological and economic responses appear to provide a rationale for pulsed advertising. Moreover, a pulsed advertising policy is shown to mitigate the adverse effects on the resource base which would normally accompany expansion of consumption without direct production control.generic promotion, oysters, common property, pulsed advertising, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Random Utility Models of Recreational Fishing: Catching Fish Using a Poisson Process

This paper presents a Poisson model of expected angler catch during a sportfishing trip and employs the expected catch in a random utility model of site choice. The approach permits greater heterogeneity in expected catch and in individual welfare estimates from policies such as creel limits.sportfishing, creel limits, expected catch, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

SHORT-RUN WELFARE LOSSES FROM ESSENTIAL FISH HABITAT DESIGNATIONS FOR THE SURFCLAM AND OCEAN QUAHOG FISHERIES

In this paper, we present a spatial model of fishing that can be used to assess some of the economic welfare losses to producers from setting aside essential fish habitat (EFH) areas. The paper demonstrates how spatially explicit behavioral models of fishing are estimated, how these models can be used to measure welfare losses to fishermen, and how these models can then, in turn, be used to simulate fishing behavior. In developing the spatial model of fishing behavior, the work incorporates ideas of congestion and information effects, and we show a modification of standard welfare measures that accounts for these spillover effects. Using this methodology, these effects are traced through to the policy simulations, where we demonstrate how these welfare and predicted shares need to be modified to account for spillover effects from fleet activity.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,