Three essays on marine natural resources and environmental economics
Date
2019
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Marine and coastal environment is an import part of the whole ecosystem, which contains near one third of the global population and many economic activities depend on the services provided by these ecosystems. Each of the three essays focuses on a different aspect of marine socioeconomic issues, including recreation loss from near shore oil spill, the impact of ecolabel program on seafood production, and the development of offshore wind farms. ☐ The first essay reports on a damage assessment for a 2014 oil spill in Galveston Bay, Texas. It is intended to show how a well-known recreation demand model, the travel cost random utility maximization model, is used in practice for a major oil spill. Its focus is on lost beach-use value. The reporting here stays “true” the actual approach used in the damage assessment and the values as they were presented. The analysis updates a travel cost random utility maximization model estimated in Parsons et al., (2009) and then simulates the model to mimic actual beach closures in the spill event. The baseline estimates for lost value per trip (day trips) is approximately $34. Relaxing restrictions on temporal and spatial substitution patterns suggests that this estimate could be reduced further. ☐ The second essay investigate the effectiveness of MSC ecolabels. There is a growing economic literature on the joint provision of private and public goods. Ecolabels have received wide attention as a tool that can both increase consumer welfare and provide conservation incentives to producers through price premiums. Previous literature has consistently found positive willingness to pay or price premium for environmental product attributes, conveyed through eco-labels, at the retail level. However, there is little evidence that eco-labels can generate price incentives for producers, for example fishermen and processors for seafood. In this study, we explore evidence of a price premium for processors/wholesalers of sustainable seafood certified by Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). We empirically test for a price premium at the intermediate (wholesale) stage in the seafood supply chain for up to eight major Alaska commercial fishery species and three product types with the newly developed Generalized Synthetic Control (GSC) approach. In general, we find evidence of price premium at the wholesale level, but the premium is highly heterogeneous across species, product types, and importing countries. Our results help to shed light on the producer incentive generated from eco-label programs. ☐ In the third essay, we consider anchoring on visual cues in a contingent-behavior study of the effects of offshore wind power projects on beach use on the East Coast of the United States. In an internet-based survey of beachgoers, we show respondents visual simulations of offshore wind projects at three offshore distances and vary the order in which respondents see the visuals: near-to-far versus far-to-near. Respondents are asked how their beach experience and trip taking behavior may be affected by the wind power projects. In parametric and non-parametric analyses, we find strong anchoring in the far-to-near ordering and anchoring, but somewhat weaker, in the near-to-far order. We also find greater anchoring on “first shown” visuals versus “most recent seen” visuals. The size of the anchoring effect has important policy implication insofar as it effects the predicted change in visitation and hence impact of offshore wind power projects.