The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of the most controversial pieces of environmental legislation. Part of the controversy stems from doubts about its effectiveness in generating improvements in species viability. This paper uses ordered probit models to test whether the ESA has been...

Voluntary conservation agreements are becoming increasingly important in implementing the Endangered Species Act on private land. We analyze when such agreements arise and what level of conservation they generate in the presence of uncertainty about future government regulation and conservation...

We explore the allocation of recovery funds to species listed under the Endangered Species Act. We simulate outcomes from allocations based on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's priority rankings and on rankings used in U.S. states' Wildlife Action Plans developed under the Congressional...

Land use change is the most pervasive force driving the degradation of watershed ecosystems. This article combines an econometric model of land use choice with models of watershed health indicators to examine the effects of land use policies on watershed ecosystems through their effect on land...

Habitat conservation plans (HCPs) have become a key instrument for implementation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on private land. However, there is no systematic analysis of their effectiveness in promoting endangered species recovery. This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive...