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6 - Interest Group Behavior and Endangered Species Protection
- Edited by Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming, John Tschirhart, University of Wyoming
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- Book:
- Protecting Endangered Species in the United States
- Published online:
- 06 July 2010
- Print publication:
- 21 May 2001, pp 91-105
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- Chapter
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
In the face of growing concern over species extinction rates, national and international decision-making bodies have become increasingly aware of the need to establish effective, efficient policies to protect endangered species and their habitat. The task faced by these policy makers is complicated by the fact that policies and institutions may not function in practice as their creators intend. Political forces and human nature may yield patterns in the administration of such policies that are at odds with official doctrine. Political-economy theory describes the sorts of patterns one may expect to see in practice, and even investigates whether the influence of politics over policy can be expected to be a good thing. Citizens, scholars, lawmakers, and administrators can use the ideas that have emerged from this field in their attempts to anticipate, and later quantify, some elements of the divergence between policy de jure and de facto.
This chapter illustrates how classic political-economy theories are relevant to understanding some aspects of how endangered species policies play out. As part of that exercise, it describes three empirical studies of part of the administration of the United States' Endangered Species Act (ESA). These studies serve as examples of the kinds of empirical work one might do in order to quantify the political-economic forces at work in a policy arena, and mine the information about policies those forces implicitly provide. They also provide particular insight into the role played by political pressure in the process by which species are added to the endangered species list in the United States, and into the costs and benefits associated with those listings.
18 - Why Economics Matters for Endangered Species Protection and the ESA
- Edited by Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming, John Tschirhart, University of Wyoming
-
- Book:
- Protecting Endangered Species in the United States
- Published online:
- 06 July 2010
- Print publication:
- 21 May 2001, pp 365-373
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Evidence suggests that Earth's species may be in the midst of a wave of extinction, disappearing at rates 10 to 1,000 times greater than background or natural rates of extinction (Jablonski 1991; May, Lawton, and Stork 1995; National Research Council 1995; Pimm et al. 1995). If we agree that the extinction problem is due to human action, then modifying human behavior must be part of the solution. And yet the consistent exclusion of economic behavior in the calculus of endangered species protection has led to ineffective and, in some instances, counterproductive conservation policy.
This chapter argues that endangered species preservation must take into account basic principles of economic behavior to avoid wasting valuable resources that yield no gain in species protection. We address why economics matters more to species protection than many people think, and what this implies for the ongoing debate over the reauthorization of the ESA (ESA) of 1973.
A news columnist's quip captures a common reaction to reports of species at risk: “What scientists call endangered most people call bait” (Smith 1996). To others the value of protecting endangered species is so obvious, and so overwhelming, that estimates of costs and benefits seem immaterial. This view is exemplified by Roughgarden (1995), who argues that economics should not be confused with morality: “In fact, we should not take costs into account when setting environmental (or other) objectives, but we should take costs into account when considering how to implement moral objectives as policy” [emphasis in original].