IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ajagec/v99y2017i3p549-570..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Listing and Delisting Thresholds under the Endangered Species Act

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Sims
  • David Finnoff
  • Alan Hastings
  • Jacob Hochard

Abstract

We consider the case where a species provides a flow of economic benefits, is at risk of extinction, and is being considered for addition to the Endangered Species List. Listing a species as endangered is costly but increases the flow of social benefits and reduces the likelihood of extinction. If the species recovers sufficiently, additional costs can be incurred to subsequently delist the species. By treating listing and delisting as a pair of linked investment options, we provide an alternative to current practice for listing and delisting decisions that maximizes the return from public conservation investments. Under this alternative framework, we show that economic considerations may actually afford greater protection for at-risk species if these decisions are initiated early. However, biological sources of uncertainty may cause those species most in need of protection to be passed over in favor of more stable species that represent a “sure bet” for species preservation.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Sims & David Finnoff & Alan Hastings & Jacob Hochard, 2017. "Listing and Delisting Thresholds under the Endangered Species Act," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(3), pages 549-570.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:99:y:2017:i:3:p:549-570.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aaw094
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sloggy, Matthew R. & Kling, David M. & Plantinga, Andrew J., 2020. "Measure twice, cut once: Optimal inventory and harvest under volume uncertainty and stochastic price dynamics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    2. Malone, Trey & Melstrom, Richard T., 2020. "Where’s the beef? Cattle producers’ response to endangered species listings," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    3. Jacob LaRiviere & David Kling & James N Sanchirico & Charles Sims & Michael Springborn, 2018. "The Treatment of Uncertainty and Learning in the Economics of Natural Resource and Environmental Management," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 92-112.
    4. Jacob P. Byl, 2021. "Three Barriers to Effective Programs with Payment for Ecosystem Services: Behavioral Responses in a Computer-Based Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-17, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endangered species; compound option; optimal switching; uncertainty; irreversibility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:99:y:2017:i:3:p:549-570.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.