Daniel T. Kaffine

Marine Protected Areas in Spatial Property-Rights Fisheries

Marine protected areas (MPAs) and spatial property rights (TURFs) are two seemingly contradictory approaches advocated as solutions to common property failures in fisheries. MPAs limit harvest to certain areas, but may enhance profits outside via spillover. TURFs incentivize local stewardship but may be plagued by spatial externalities when the TURF size is insufficient to capture all dispersal. Within a numerical model parameterized to a California marine species, we explore the economic and ecological effects of imposing MPAs on a TURF-regulated fishery. Whether MPAs can enhance or diminish profits (or fish abundance) hinges critically on the level of coordination already occurring between TURF owners. If coordination is complete, private MPAs may already emerge in some TURFs; implementing additional MPAs reduces profits. However, to the extent that coordination is incomplete, strategically sited MPAs may be an effective complement to spatial property rights-based fisheries, increasing both fishery profits and abundance.

The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector

In transportation systems with unpriced congestion, allowing single-occupant low-emission vehicles in high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to encourage their adoption exacerbates congestion costs for carpoolers. The resulting welfare effects of the policy are negative, with environmental benefits overwhelmingly dominated by the increased congestion costs. Exploiting the introduction of the Clean Air Vehicle Stickers policy in California with a regression discontinuity design, our results imply a best-case cost of

UNITIZATION OF SPATIALLY CONNECTED RENEWABLE RESOURCES

124 per ton of reductions in greenhouse gases,

Carpooling and Driver Responses to Fuel Price Changes: Evidence from Traffic Flows in Los Angeles

606,000 per ton of nitrogen oxides reduction, and

Gas Prices, Traffic, and Freeway Speeds in Los Angeles

505,000 per ton of hydrocarbon reduction, exceeding those of other options readily available to policymakers.

Quality and the Commons: The Surf Gangs of California

Abstract Spatial connectivity of renewable resources induces a spatial externality in extraction. We explore the consequences of decentralized spatial property rights in the presence of spatial externalities. We generalize the notion of unitization—developed to enhance cooperative extraction of oil and gas fields—and apply it to renewable resources which face a similar spatial commons problem. We find that unitizing a common pool renewable resource can yield first-best outcomes even when participation is voluntary, provided profit sharing rules can vary by participant.

Welfare Effects of Anti-Sprawl Policies in the Presence of Urban Decline

Understanding how drivers respond to fuel price changes has important implications for highway congestion, accidents, carbon policy, local air pollution and taxation. We examine the underexplored relationship between fuel prices and carpooling. Using a simple theoretical model we show that traffic flows in mainline lanes decrease when fuel prices increase. However in carpool (HOV) lanes, flow can either increase or decrease. Traffic flows in mainline lanes are shown to be more responsive to price changes when the presence of a carpool lane provides a substitute to driving alone. We test these predictions using eight years of traffic data for 1,700 locations in Los Angeles. The mean elasticity of flow with respect to fuel price is 0.136 for HOV lanes. This implies 10 additional carpools per hour for a 10 percent increase in fuel price. For mainline lanes, flow elasticities are -0.083 and -0.050 for highways with and without an HOV lane. These estimates imply that the mean highway with an HOV lane experiences a 30 percent larger decrease in hourly flow compared to the mean highway without an HOV lane. Flows in HOV lanes show an immediate decrease following a price increase but respond positively to price increases over time, which suggests time is an important input to carpool formation.

Implications of agricultural policy for species invasion in shifting cultivation systems

Using detailed data on traffic speeds for 12 Los Angeles freeway routes from 2001 to 2006, we investigate aggregate behavioral response to gasoline prices. If traffic is free flowing, drivers should slow to more fuel-efficient speeds as the price of gasoline rises. However, we find little evidence that drivers respond to increased fuel costs by slowing down. When congestion constrains traffic flow, freeway speeds should rise with gasoline price, and we find a 1.00 increase in price raises average freeway speeds by approximately 7 during rush-hour periods. Finally, we introduce a novel method to calculate the short-run vehicle miles traveled demand elasticity during rush hour.

Scrap Prices, Waste, and Recycling Policy

In open‐access settings, high‐quality resources are lucrative, yet fencing out potential entrants may be very costly. I examine the endogenous creation of property rights, focusing on the incentives that resource quality provides to close the commons. Analytical examples explore the incentives of locals to increase or decrease the strength of property rights conditional on how locals and nonlocals value the quality of the resource. The empirical analysis looks at a unique resource—surf breaks—and estimates the relationship between the exogenous quality of the resource (waves at the surf break) and local attempts to seize the common surf break. Using cross‐sectional data on 86 surf breaks along the southern California coast, this paper finds that a 10 percent increase in quality leads to a 7–17 percent increase in the strength of property rights.

Energy efficiency and emissions intensity standards

This paper extends first-best analysis of anti-sprawl policies, such as development taxes, and examines the welfare effects of development taxes in the presence of urban decline at the city core. We find that anti-sprawl policies generate several important feedbacks within the urban system, generating additional welfare gains and affecting the level of urban decline and suburban sprawl. Further, the optimal development tax exceeds the (first-best) Pigouvian level, irrespective of whether or not revenues are returned lump-sum to all landowners or earmarked for urban decline mitigation.