Eric E. Anderson

Economic Benefits of Habitat Restoration: Seagrass and the Virginia Hard-Shell Blue Crab Fishery

Abstract Since the early 1960s, water pollution has caused the disappearance of much of the seagrass (predominantly eelgrass Zostera marina) and other submerged aquatic vegetation in Chesapeake Bay. Seagrass beds appear to serve as preferred habitat for the blue crab Callinectes sapidus during early stages of its life history, and there is a statistically significant relationship between the abundance of submerged aquatic vegetation and catch per unit of effort in the Virginia hard-shell blue crab fishery. Virginia seagrass beds might be partially or fully restored through a combination of pollution abatement and replanting. I developed a simple simulation model with minimal data requirements to generate rough estimates of some of the economic benefits that would accrue from seagrass restoration. The estimated net economic benefit to Virginia hard-shell blue crab fishermen of full seagrass restoration is about US

Taxes vs. Quotas for Regulating Fisheries Under Uncertainty: A Hybrid Discrete-Time Continuous-Time Model

1.8 million per year, and additional annual benefits of about

Alcohol involvement in recreational boating: implications for safety regulation

2.4 million should accrue to U...

A STANDALONE-COST COSTING METHODOLOGY FOR A MULTISERVICE TRANSIT FIRM

There is a wide variety of regulatory instruments available for achieving economic efficiency in markets where externalities exist. All of them, when correctly designed, are equally effective, provided that complete information is available and that adjustments to the level of the instruments can be made costlessly. However, with the presence of uncertainty, it is well known that one instrument or another may produce a higher expected present value of net social benefits than the others. How uncertainty affects the choice of instrument specifically in fishery management and in other dynamic optimization settings is less well known. A combination discrete-time and continuous-time stochastic model of a dynamic fishery is used to compare the relative performance of a per unit tax and a quota in this paper. The analysis confirms the conclusion reached in the general literature on optimal instrument choice under uncertainty: which instrument performs most efficiently depends on the specific fishery being regulated.

Relative Efficiency of Charges and Quantity Controls in Fisheries with Continuous Stock Growth and Periodically Fixed Instrument Levels

The intent of the recently enacted federal anti-alcohol recreational boating legislation is to reduce boating accidents by reducing alcohol consumption by boat operators. This legislation implicitly assumes that alcohol consumption by operators is a determinant of operators being at fault in boating accidents. The results of this paper, based on a multivariate analysis of microdata, support this assumption for non-fatal but not for fatal boating accidents. However, alcohol involvement was found to be a significant determinant of the severity of boating accidents (i.e. fatal versus non-fatal accidents). These results suggest that alcohol involvement causes boating fatalities but does not cause the operator to be at fault in fatal boating accidents. A policy implication is that laws proscribing intoxication during boating should be directed not just at operators, but at all water recreationists.

The Oil Spill Size of Tanker and Barge Accidents: Determinants and Policy Implications

Abstract Every multiservice transit firm faces the problem of determining the share of the firms costs to be borne by each service. A standalone-cost costing methodology for determining such cost shares is proposed. This costing methodology may also be used to investigate the cost efficiency or inefficiency of a multiservice transit firm. The applicability of the methodology is demonstrated in applying it to a multiservice public transit firm, the Tidewater Transportation District Commission, by estimating standalone costs using a statistical cost function for the organization. In addition to multiservice transit firms, the methodology may also be applied to any type of multiservice transportation firm.

AN URBAN TRANSIT FIRM PROVIDING TRANSIT, PARATRANSIT AND CONTRACTED-OUT SERVICES : A COST ANALYSIS

This article presents a simple combination discrete-time/continuous-time model that incorporates continuous population dynamics and fishing activity together with periodic, rather than continuous, instrument adjustment into the decision process for choosing the optimal type and level of regulatory instrument. A per-unit tax and an allocated instantaneous harvest rate quota each drive the system along different time paths, and each results in a different present value of the stream of net benefits generated by harvesting the resource. The choice of instruments is fishery specific; it depends on the parameter values of the fishery in question.