For a number of animal species, speculators are betting on future price increases by holding large stockpiles of commodities from the animal. We develop a model to explain this behavior. We derive conditions where it can be optimal for a speculator to induce poachers to harvest so rapidly as to...

Environmental groups have be- food products other than those that norcome the chief antagonists toward agricultural bio- mally carry allergens (See Friends of the technology innovations. They demonstrate and dis- Earth 2001; Greenpeace International 2001). seminate private information with the...

Self-protection has been used to help define lower bounds on the value of statistical life (VSL). We show circumstances exist in which (1) the lower bounds are so low as to be more misleading than informative; and (2) the bound is an upper bound on the population’s average VSL. The relationship...

Recent literature on greenhouse gas controls shows the costs of climate protection can be offset by the ancillary benefits generated from lower local air pollution. We show here that such ancillary benefits imply the unfettered price of carbon emissions permits observed in tradable permit...

This paper investigates the idea that people are unsure about the value they place on prospective changes in environmental goods. In particular, we focus on a parametric explanation of the determinants of a "value gap," the difference between the most someone is sure they would pay for an...

This paper reevaluates federal allocation decisions to protect 241 endangered vertebrates between 1993 - 1996. We control for the time invariant species characteristics to address species heterogeneity bias. The results suggest that yearly variation in variables like endangerment rankings and...

A concern with the contingent valuation method (CVM) is the finding that hypothetical and real statements of value often differ. We test whether hypothetical bias, broadly defined, is independent of location by comparing real and hypothetical votes on a dichotomous choice referendum in China,...

Conventional wisdom implies economic growth and environmental quality are incompatible policy objectives. Recent empirical evidence, however, suggests stringency of environmental regulations are only weakly (or not at all) associated with decreased manufacturing activity. This paper uses more...

Sustainable development has been a popular buzzword among policymakers and economists for over a decade. Although a key tenet of maintaining a sustainable development path for many economies rests on attracting mobile capital, theoretical and empirical evidence into the institutional policies...

Psychological insights have made inroads within most areas of study in economics. One area where less advance has occurred is environmental and resource economics. In this study, we examine preference reversals over evaluation modes, in which economic values critically depend on whether a good...