Protecting Species through Legislation: The Case of Sea Turtles

Brei, Michael; Pérez-Barahona, Augustín; Strobl, Eric (2020). Protecting Species through Legislation: The Case of Sea Turtles. American journal of agricultural economics, 102(1), pp. 300-328. Wiley 10.1093/ajae/aaz025

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We evaluate the effectiveness of legislation in reducing the negative impacts of beachfront lighting on sea turtle nesting activity, one of the main threats to the species. To this end we construct a time varying index of ordinance effectiveness across Florida counties and combine this with loggerhead nesting data to create a panel data set covering a twenty-six year period. Our econometric findings show that such legislation can significantly increase nesting activity, where current levels of protection result in an additional 34%. Using our estimates within a calibrated population model we also demonstrate that legislation can reduce the time to the animals’ extinction. Finally, when considering estimates of local willingness to pay for sea turtle preservation, we show that alternatively raising sea turtles in captivity under a head start program may be prohibitively expensive.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics
03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Economics > Institute of Economics > Public Economics

UniBE Contributor:

Strobl, Eric Albert

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics

ISSN:

1467-8276

Publisher:

Wiley

Language:

English

Submitter:

Dino Collalti

Date Deposited:

12 Feb 2020 09:52

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:35

Publisher DOI:

10.1093/ajae/aaz025

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.138536

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/138536

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