We empirically investigate the effects of the Northwest Forest Plan on two widely-used economic indicators: employment growth and net migration. We find weak evidence that that setting aside 10 million acres of productive forest land for biodiversity protection had a large, but short-lived...

The necessity to develop a priority system to guide the allocation of resources to the conservation of endangered species is widely recognized. The economic theory of biodiversity has established a framework to do so, and has identified priority criteria that should be considered when making...

Debates over protecting public land reveal two views. Some argue protection reduces commodity production, reducing local employment and increasing out-migration. Others contend protection produces amenities that support job growth and attract migrants. We test these competing views for the...

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of the most controversial pieces of environmental legislation. Part of the controversy stems from doubts about its effectiveness in generating improvements in species viability. This paper uses ordered probit models to test whether the ESA has been...

The heated and continuing controversy surrounding the Endangered Species Act (ESA) stems in part from doubts about its effectiveness in generating species recovery. In this paper, we develop three ordered scores of changes in species' recovery status based on changes in Nature Conservancy...

Threatened and endangered species recovery programs consume increasing resources. Even so, there is increased concern about actual and projected biodiversity losses and in the success of recovery programs in reversing these trends. In this paper, we use a panel data set and ordered probit...